Keeping outdated solar tech

Site is costly and kills birds, but state needs energy

- BY HAYLEY SMITH

MARK BOSTER Los Angeles Times ITS MIRRORS properly angled, a tower glows hot at Ivanpah solar plant in 2014.

The electricity it makes is expensive, its technology has been superseded, and it's incinerating thousands of birds mid-flight each year.

The Trump administration wants to see this unusual power plant closed, and in a rare instance of alignment, the Biden administration did, too.

But the state of California is insisting the Ivanpah power plant in the Mojave Desert stay open for at least 13 more years. It's an indication of just how much electricity artificial intelligence and data centers are demanding.

Ivanpah's owners, which include NRG Energy, Google and BrightSource, had agreed with their main customer, Pacific Gas & Electric, to end their contract and largely close Ivanpah. But last month, the California Public Utilities Commission unanimously rejected that agreement, citing concerns about reliability of the grid in delivering electricity. The decision will effectively force two of Ivanpah's three units to remain running rather than shutting down this year.

PG&E and the federal government had argued that closing would save ratepayers and taxpayers money compared with paying for Ivanpah's electricity until 2039, when the contract expires. But some experts and stakeholders agreed with the state's call, noting that the troubled power plant is still providing electricity at a moment when the state has little to spare.

"We're seeing massive electricity demand, especially from the great need for data centers, and we're seeing grid reliability issues, so all in all, I think this was a wise move," said Dan Reicher, a senior scholar at.