Nov 13, 2024 · 32m · green-blueprint
Why concentrated solar couldn’t compete
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
Former BrightSource Energy CEO John Woolard joins host Lara Pierpoint on The Green Blueprint to analyze the rise, ambitious financing, and ultimate economic disruption of utility-scale concentrated solar power by rapidly cheapening silicon photovoltaics.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. The hosts hold 35.8% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
The hosts as informed peer 5.5 Guest teaching 5.4 Guest disagreement 1.6 The hosts pushing back 1.3
speaking balance: gold is the hosts, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 21:15 Refusal to develop technology with flat to increasing costs
John forcefully articulates the impossibility of asking developers to sell an asset with flat or increasing costs while their direct competitor's price decreases daily.
Hardest push from the hosts ▶ 23:56 Host pushes back on whether storage attributes could save CSPLara challenges the premise that electricity cost alone dictated defeat, pressing whether built-in thermal storage attributes should have provided sufficient market value.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 14:00 Explaining Bechtel's role in extinguishing startup technology riskJohn educates the host on how Bechtel asserting BrightSource was replaceable was precisely what convinced the DOE and banks to underwrite the debt.
The host holds their own ▶ 18:41 Host synthesizes environmental permitting dichotomyLara displays clear industry expertise by using the desert tortoise and tarp color examples to articulate the broader policy debate around environmental permitting reform.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | The hosts as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | The hosts pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Negev Desert Pilot and the Promise of Steam | 4 | 5 | 1 | 1 | Lara introduces the narrative of the Negev pilot project and frames the technological stakes. John provides detailed engineering context regarding 500 suns of flux and steam generation at 550 degrees Celsius and 130 bar. | |
| The Evolution of Concentrated Solar: Towers versus Troughs | 5 | 6 | 1 | 1 | Lara asks about the transition from parabolic troughs to power towers. John explains the thermodynamics of higher concentration (600 suns), higher steam temperatures, and the resulting 40 percent design-driven cost reduction. | |
| Early Economics: Power Towers versus Silicon Photovoltaics | 5 | 6 | 2 | 1 | Lara brings up silicon PV pricing and thermal storage attributes. John breaks down historical metrics ($9/watt for PV versus $6/watt for CSP, higher capacity factors) and details how the US team bypassed Israeli skepticism to secure the $1.6 billion DOE loan guarantee. | |
| Financial Market Collapse and the Disappearing Tax Equity | 6 | 6 | 1 | 1 | Lara connects historical tax equity financing to modern IRA provisions and presses on how Morgan Stanley was engaged. John recounts how the 2008 financial crash wiped out Wall Street taxable income overnight, eliminating their primary tax equity partner. | |
| Recruiting Corporate Tech Giants: Google and NRG Step In | 6 | 5 | 1 | 2 | Lara notes the paradox for a startup where EPC giant Bechtel guaranteed completion by asserting the startup was dispensable. John confirms that Bechtel absorbing the technology risk layer was indispensable for closing the debt financing. | |
| Permitting Battles: Desert Tortoise Sanctuaries and Tarp Colors | 6 | 4 | 2 | 1 | John shares anecdotes regarding the desert tortoise head start program and the California Energy Commission nearly shutting down the site over tent tarp color. Lara reflects on the broader policy implications for federal environmental permitting reform. | |
| The Silicon PV Crash and Changing Economics | 5 | 6 | 3 | 1 | John explains the internal tension as Chinese manufacturing dropped PV costs from $6 to $3 per watt by 2009 and even lower by 2011. He highlights the rift between US developers advocating for PV adoption and Israeli engineers convinced CSP could innovate its way out. | |
| The 2012 Boardroom Confrontation over CSP Competitiveness | 7 | 6 | 2 | 3 | Lara questions why CSP could not differentiate itself through inherent thermal energy storage attributes. John clarifies that Ivanpah direct-steam generation lacked molten salt storage and that contemporary power markets were unwilling to pay a premium for integrated storage. | |
| The Failed Strategic Pivot and Executive Transition | 5 | 5 | 1 | 1 | Lara asks about the strategic decision to propose pivoting the pipeline into third-party PV deployment. John describes the board's technological entrenchment, which ultimately led to his planned departure and replacement by David Ram. | |
| Ivanpah’s Operational Performance and CSP’s Modern Niche | 6 | 5 | 2 | 1 | John reviews Ivanpah operating at 90 percent capacity and PV module prices falling to 30 cents per watt. He cautions modern clean tech developers, drawing an analogy to small modular reactors potentially undercutting expensive offshore wind. |
Statements from this episode (16)
Woolard: Developing flat-cost tech against rapidly cheapening competitors is unwinnable
“If you're asked to develop something that's price is flat to increasing, when your competitor's price is decreasing every day, you're asked to do something you can't win at.”
Woolard: BrightSource's power tower design cut solar thermal costs by ~40%
“It reduced, it was about a 40% cost reduction from the design alone.”
Woolard: Solar towers had half the cost of silicon PV in 2005
“So silicon PV was around nine dollars a watt, and the tower technology we had was around six dollars a watt, dropping to five dollars a lot. So it was more or less half the price, And it could produce, if you put it in the right site, it could produce at aroun…”
Woolard: Ivanpah was the largest tax equity financing ever done
“And so the tax equity financing component is really important because this point this would have been the largest tax equity financing or was the largest tax equity financing ever done.”
Woolard: 2008 financial crisis erased Morgan Stanley's tax equity appetite overnight
“All the taxable income of all of the Wall Street banks. So they, their tax equity appetite went from very large to zero, overnight. Everybody was fired from Morgan Stanley, we lost our board member, we lost our tax equity sponsor, and that was the pivotal part…”
Woolard: NRG and Google invested $300M and $150M in BrightSource's Ivanpah
“NRG, they came in and were able to take about three hundred million, I believe, of the Equity, both cash and tax. And then Google came in for about half that amount, and that gave us what we needed to do to restart the financing.”
Woolard: Ivanpah tortoise head start program raised survival from 2% to 90%
“We also then started and agreed to do what's called a head start program for tortoise, where basically of the eggs that are actually laid only two percent survive. So we took pregnant tortoise, we found them, and we moved them, we took Eggs, we, and we created…”
Woolard: BrightSource Built On-Site Automated Line for 173,000 Heliostats
“We had a facility complete with a robotized automated assembly line where we were going to assemble a 173,000 heliostats because it made more sense to assemble and do the manufacturing on site rather than do it remote and take a fragile facility manufactured p…”
Woolard: California regulators tried to halt Ivanpah over a tarp's color
“We happened to have a brown cover to that temporary, 18 month manufacturing facility, and the CEC, California Energy Commission tried to stop all construction, which basically would have killed the project, because the color of the tarp was not the right color…”
Woolard: Solar PV fell to $3/watt by 2009, undercutting CSP by 2011
“By the time you got to 2009, it was down to maybe three dollars a watt. And three dollars a watt became an interesting number. So, That's when the U.S. Team started to pay attention and say, you know, this is something that is now, it's been cut in half. It's …”
Woolard: BrightSource leadership concluded CSP was no longer competitive in 2012
“That's when we basically said, we can no longer win game. We are no longer competitive. And that was a different message. We'd said, well, maybe you could, and you could sell in different attributes. But at that point, we said, this is no longer a competitive …”
Woolard: BrightSource cut costs to $3.90/W while PV fell to $2.50/W
“Well, so the engineering team was working really diligently and really hard to do whatever they could on costs, and our costs were going from, say, five dollars a watt to four dollars and 30 cents a watt and maybe down to about three 90 a watt. Meanwhile, at t…”
Woolard: Ivanpah operates at roughly 90% of its design capacity
“Ivanpah had some awkward parts ramping up, but ultimately delivered and ramps and produces power and energy today at about 90% of its original design capacity.”
Woolard: Solar thermal will likely only survive in industrial heat applications
“That's not to say somebody can't find a new design and a new application for industrial heat or something in the future, but it's likely to emerge, if at all, as a niche where you have strong sun, strong DNI, and some reason to have heat rather than just elect…”
Woolard: BrightSource faced existential risk by failing to pivot away from CSP
“I think if I had something to do over, I would have been more Firm and more strong that the company was facing not just a decision, but an existential risk. And I would have been a lot stronger on that, saying that this company will not exist if we do not move…”