Why did the DOE take “excessive risk” in giving $2.8 billion to a Spanish solar firm?

Marita Noon

We are about to close with the final two installments of this Special Seven series––the renewable energy (mainly solar) firms that not only received billions in Department of Energy (DOE) loans and federal grants, but those that received “preferential treatment” from the Department of Interior to lease federal land in a no-bid process, meaning that they were approved without “adequate vetting.” Whereas the review process for establishing an oil and gas lease on federal land can take up to five years, some of these favored green-energy projects were pushed through in less than a year. Our first five chapters on Solar Reserve, BrightSource Energy, Nevada Geothermal, Ormat Nevada (the two Nevada companies were featured in one report), and First Solar; revealed a convoluted and tangled trail of political ties in each of these green-energy crony-corruption cases. This chapter looks at the Spanish company Abengoa that received more than $2.8 billion in loans and grants—making them the second largest recipient of the $16 billion doled out through the DOE 1705 loan guarantee program. From the introduction of this serialized book, the thumbnail says: Abengoa has two solar projects: Solana and Mojave Solar. Solana’s Fitch rating is BB+. Just before Christmas, 2010, the company received $1.45 billion from the DOE for a solar thermal plant, to use parabolic trough technology in Gila Bend, AZ. Mojave Solar’s rating was BB. Yet the company received $1.2 billion in September 2011 for its solar assembly collection project in San Bernardino County, CA. Abengoa has connections to California’s Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein. Read More News New Mexico

Why did the DOE take “excessive risk” in giving $2.8 billion to a Spanish solar firm?