⁍ Tonopah Solar Energy LLC still owes $425 million on its DOE loan, but reached a settlement under which the department will recover at least $200 million.

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⁍ A senior Trump administration official said the settlement ‘secures taxpayer money that was squandered by the previous administrations’ failed energy pet projects

– A huge solar-thermal power plant that was supposed to be the first of its kind in the US has filed for bankruptcy, Reuters reports. The Tonopah Solar Energy plant, which opened in 2015, received $737 million in loans from the Department of Energy under the Obama administration. According to the Wall Street Journal, Tonopah was supposed to be able to store solar energy for later use, but it never got off the ground because of problems with its technology, which uses more than 10,000 mirrors to focus the sun’s heat on a tower to create steam. The plant, which was supposed to produce 110 megawatts of power, hasn’t been running since April of 2019. A senior Trump administration official says the bankruptcy filing “secures taxpayer money that was squandered by the previous administrations’ failed energy pet projects.” A spokesperson for the DOE says the settlement decision “was made after years of exhausting options within our authority to get the project back on track.” Tonopah is owned by SolarReserve, the startup that developed the plant, Cobra Energy Investments LLC, a division of Spanish infrastructure company ACS, and Banco Santander SA, according to court papers. Tonopah still owes $425 million on its DOE loan.