A $2.2 billion solar power plant built with massive federal backing during the Obama administration continues to operate in the Mojave Desert, not because it makes economic sense, but because California regulators won't let it close. Both the Trump and Biden administrations supported shutting it down. The utility that buys its electricity wants out. Energy experts say the technology is obsolete. Yet the Ivanpah Solar Power Plant grinds on, and ratepayers and taxpayers keep footing the bill.
The California Public Utilities Commission rejected efforts to terminate the plant's contracts, citing concerns about grid reliability and warning that closure could strand more than $300 million in ratepayer-funded transmission and infrastructure tied to the project. That decision effectively overruled the federal government, the plant's own utility customer, and basic market economics, all to keep a green energy showpiece from becoming an official failure on the books.
Fox News Digital reported that the nearly 400-megawatt facility, sprawling across more than 4,000 acres near the California-Nevada border, still carries between $730 million and $780 million in outstanding federal loan obligations. The U.S. Treasury separately provided a $539 million grant, covering roughly 30 percent of construction costs, and the project received additional tax credits, accelerated depreciation, and other federal incentives. All told, federal taxpayers underwrote this facility to a staggering degree.
Ivanpah doesn't use the photovoltaic solar panels most Americans picture when they think of solar energy. Instead, roughly 350,000 mirrors arranged across more than 170,000 heliostats reflect sunlight onto boilers perched atop three towers standing nearly 460 feet tall. The concentrated heat produces steam that drives turbines. The technology is called concentrated solar power, and it was supposed to be the future when the project launched during the Obama-era economic stimulus program following the 2008 financial crisis.
The future had other plans.
Severin Borenstein, an energy economist at the University of California, Berkeley, told Fox News Digital that the underlying economics shifted dramatically beneath the project.
"When this plant was planned, solar thermal looked like a promising approach. But photovoltaic costs fell much faster than anyone anticipated, and that changed the economics entirely."
Borenstein said Ivanpah "fell into the latter category" of government-backed energy bets that didn't pan out. He acknowledged the long-term contracts make walking away difficult: "These are long-lived assets with long-term contracts. Even if they no longer make economic sense, you can't easily just walk away."
That framing, "you can't easily just walk away", captures the entire problem. The Obama administration placed a multi-billion-dollar bet on a technology that was already losing ground to cheaper alternatives. Now the contracts, the infrastructure, and the political investment all serve as anchors preventing anyone from cutting losses. The pattern is familiar to anyone who watched the same administration's approach to climate policy, where ambitious goals often outran practical reality.
The plant opened in 2014 with projections that it would operate at a 25 to 30 percent capacity factor. By 2023, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory data showed Ivanpah running at roughly 17 percent, far below even the lower end of original estimates.
Some analysts estimate the plant's electricity costs customers roughly $100 million more per year than power from newer solar alternatives. Pacific Gas & Electric, the utility buying Ivanpah's output, described the contracts as "uneconomic resources" in regulatory filings and argued that terminating them would save customers money.
A 2025 audit by California regulators identified recurring forced outages and equipment issues that could affect reliability, the very thing regulators claimed they were protecting by keeping the plant open. The irony is hard to miss: the commission refused to close Ivanpah partly on reliability grounds, while the plant itself has documented reliability problems.
The underperformance started early. Breitbart reported that in its first year, the plant produced 254,263 megawatt-hours from January through August and 189,156 MWh in the following four months, far below original projections of more than one million MWh annually. The owners even sought approval to use 60 percent more natural gas in auxiliary boilers than originally allowed. BrightSource, one of the project's backers, blamed weather, saying conditions "at Ivanpah since February has generally been worse than expected, resulting in reduced output."
Mark Jacobson, a Stanford University energy systems expert, was blunt about the technology's future. "There's no role for a concentrated solar plant without storage," he told Fox News Digital. "It's already built. So the question is whether it's cheaper to keep it running than to replace it."
Ivanpah came out of the same federal loan-guarantee program that backed Solyndra, the solar company that collapsed in 2011 after receiving $535 million in federal loan guarantees. That failure became a symbol of reckless government spending on politically favored green energy projects. Ivanpah received its $1.6 billion federal loan guarantee through the same program.
The Obama administration publicly promoted Ivanpah as a success even as critics argued the loan-guarantee program misused taxpayer money and questioned whether it would produce economically viable technologies at scale. Tom Doyle, then president of NRG Solar, offered a telling assessment at the time: "The glory days, if you will, are behind us," he said, referring to California's large solar buildout.
The Obama administration's record on energy spending has drawn scrutiny from multiple directions. The pattern of ambitious federal investment followed by disappointing results extends well beyond Ivanpah, and the former president's broader policy legacy continues to face tough questions, including damaging revelations that have surfaced in recent years.
Congressional Republicans also pressed the case. The Washington Examiner reported that House members highlighted the plant's inability to meet its contractual obligations to supply electricity to California consumers, noting it was granted an extension with a financial penalty. A committee statement declared: "Despite its corporate backers, and billions in funding provided by the federal government, Ivanpah has been unable to meet its contractual agreements to supply electricity to consumers in California." The hearing memo added that "during the Obama administration, taxpayers have subsidized tens of billions of dollars in renewable energy projects, including risky utility scale solar projects on federal land."
The debate over Ivanpah isn't abstract for people living near the facility. Lazarus Dabour, who owns the Mad Greek restaurant in Baker, about 50 miles from the plant, described electricity bills that would stagger most Americans.
"During the summer it can be anywhere from $10,000 to $12,000... in the winter anywhere from $6,000 to $8,000. It still restricts your bottom line when your overhead from more electricity goes up. It's a big factor."
Eddie Bravo, a local store worker, said his own summer bills reach $650 to $750. "Our electricity is too high here in Baker," he said, though he added he didn't "know much about" the plant itself.
Those are the people who live with the consequences of decisions made in Washington and Sacramento. They pay the inflated electricity costs. They absorb the economic drag. And they had no say in whether a $2.2 billion facility that even its own utility customer calls uneconomic should keep operating.
The disconnect between the people making these decisions and the people paying for them is a recurring theme in energy policy, and in the broader record of Democratic leadership losing touch with ordinary Americans' priorities.
NRG Energy, which operates the facility, told Fox News Digital it remains committed to running the plant under existing agreements and providing renewable energy to California. Google invested hundreds of millions of dollars in Ivanpah's development as well. The corporate stakeholders have their own reasons to keep the facility running, contractual obligations, sunk costs, and the reputational risk of admitting a high-profile green investment failed.
California's renewable energy mandates also play a role. The state required utilities to purchase power under long-term contracts, helping ensure demand for Ivanpah's output even as newer, cheaper technologies emerged. The mandates created a captive market, ratepayers forced to buy expensive power because regulators said so.
Daniel Turner, founder of the energy advocacy group Power The Future, put it plainly to Fox News Digital.
"This project makes no economic sense to keep afloat, and the market itself has shown that. This is a boondoggle, like most of California's large projects are a boondoggle. At some point, you have to stop throwing good money after bad."
The plant has also drawn environmental criticism, an awkward outcome for a project sold as green energy. Scrutiny over bird deaths at the facility, where the intense concentrated heat can harm wildlife in flight, added another layer of failure to a project that was supposed to represent responsible stewardship.
The environmental harm is especially ironic given the Obama administration's broader posture on climate and energy regulation, which frequently prioritized political symbolism over practical outcomes.
Federal taxpayers put up a $1.6 billion loan guarantee, a $539 million cash grant, and a package of tax incentives. Between $730 million and $780 million in loan obligations remain outstanding. The plant operates at 17 percent capacity, roughly half of what was promised. Analysts say it costs ratepayers $100 million more per year than modern alternatives. A 2025 state audit flagged recurring outages. Both Republican and Democratic administrations wanted it closed. The utility buying its power called the contracts uneconomic.
And California regulators said no.
That is the story of Ivanpah: a monument to what happens when government picks winners, locks taxpayers into the bet, and then refuses to fold even after the hand has clearly lost. The mirrors still glint in the Mojave sun. The bills still arrive. And the people who made the bet never pay them.
