Colorado solar plant will be green shortly ... from the grass growing over the plant, parking lot and entire property. Lawn maintenance jobs a plenty or perhaps Harry Reid's retirement song ...
A solar plant in Alamosa built by Cogentrix LLC is up and providing electricity to Xcel Energy — but the closure of the factory producing the plant's solar panels has raised questions about its future.
The 30-megwatt plant, estimated to cost between $140 million and $150 million, received a $90.6 million federal loan guarantee from the Department of Energy.
Cogentrix is owned by Goldman Sachs, the New York-based investment bank (an Obama contributor and perhaps bungdler).
Amonix, the maker of the concentrating photovoltaic panels used at the Cogentrix plant, announced Thursday it closed its 150-megawatt Nevada factory as part of restructuringto "parallel changing market conditions." It also has a research laboratory in Torrance, Calif.
Cogentrix (GOLDMAN SACHS) has a 20-year contract to sell electricity to Xcel at an undisclosed rate. Xcel did not return a call for comment.
Cogentrix's spokesman said: "We felt we've built into the contract what we need to anticipate these kinds of events." When asked about what events, the spokesman simply said, "next question"!
Amonix said that "based on intense competition, the challenging solar-energy equipment pricing environment and lower-than-anticipated demand," it was closing its plant in Las Vegas. Harry Reid stated (or maybe would have stated), "Las Vegas and North Las Vegas are really pushing for green jobs ... with the drought and all, green lawns would really add to the economy of the area, not to mention green jobs."
Under pressure from Chinese (our investment bankers and lenders) imports, the price of traditional solar panels has fallen more than 50 percent in the last year and pushed several American solar panel makers, including Loveland-based Abound Solar, into bankruptcy.
Abound had received a $400 million federal loan guarantee, from the same Department of Energy program as Cogentrix, and had spent $68 million of it. Solyndra, a California solar-panel maker, received a $535 million loan guarantee and spent all of it. Now let's consider Ronald Pelosi and the $700 plus million he recieved from our government the tax payers for the Cresent Dunes projects in Tonopah, Nevada, for a 110 megawatt desert solar power plant now defunct. But its only tax payers money, no harm, no fowl.
