Assertion Contradicted
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…”
Insight
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.”
Disclosure
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 …”
Opinion
Woolard: Offshore wind at 15 cents is not economic against small nuclear
“To me, some of those might indicate that something like, I'll pick on offshore wind at You know, 15 cents and up is not economic compared to reliable power at a number lower than that.”
Assertion Contradicted
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.”
Assertion Supported
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…”
Assertion Contradicted
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.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
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…”
What-if
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…”
Assertion Supported
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…”
Assertion Contradicted
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.”
Assertion Supported
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…”
Assertion Supported
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.”
Assertion Supported
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…”
Assertion Supported
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…”
Assertion Supported
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 …”
