this is the Crescent Dune solar energy project located here in tanopa Nevada this project which opened back in 2015 had originally planned to power more than 75 000 Nevada homes and meet the state's Rising demand for electricity but today the project has faced a number of different challenges and even filed for bankruptcy back in 2020. therefore why was this project such a failure and what does the future hold for this one billion dollar facility to answer this we need to go back to 2011 when construction began on the project this solar farm was being developed by a company called Tonopah solar energy which was known for developing large-scale solar Farms the original plan for the project was to create a large-scale solar energy plant that would be able to produce electricity for up to 75 000 homes throughout the state and meet the rising demand for electricity throughout Nevada the development intended on using a new form of solar technology with ten thousand large mirrors that would reflect the sun's energy to generate power the vision for the project was strong and it received a 700 million dollar loan from the U.S department of energy to cover the Development and Construction costs over the next few years this loan guarantee was the largest of its kind given by the US government back in 2011 and placed a large amount of confidence in the future success of the project in addition to the loan guarantee the company also secured further funding from private investors and Venture Capital firms to support the one billion dollar development cost of the project this project was also unique because of the new technology it intended on using well traditional solar energy plans convert the sun's Rays directly into energy this project planned to use a new form of solar technology that could produce energy more efficiently and plan to operate 24 hours a day this new technology would use a vast array of mirrors instead of solar panels which would concentrate sunlight onto a single point this would then be used to heat molten salt located here in this large storage tank by using this salt steam can be created from the heat which would then be used to drive turbines to produce electricity as these diagrams show the design was far from simple and would operate completely differently than traditional solar Farms the complicated aspects of this untraditional design would turn out to be one of the largest downsides of this project and would ultimately lead to its failure in the Years afterward most of these challenges began back in 2013. after construction began on the project one of the main issues was the technical flaws with the Project's design it was found that Engineers had not taken into account the shifts in temperature that occur throughout Nevada and the extreme temperatures during summer months throughout the state this resulted in a number of major problems with the facility including mirrors melting Tower temperatures too low to produce energy and mechanical Parts failing due to the extreme heat additionally the project encountered significant delays due to the complexity of constructing and maintaining the ten thousand heliosat mirrors these mirrors had to be assembled and calibrated in order to ensure they would work correctly this process was time consuming and difficult which only slowed down the construction process the complexity of using a new form of solar technology turned out to be one of the key downsides of this project and these issues came into Play Once the plant began operation at the time of development it was believed that by using a new form of solar technology electricity could be produced more efficiently and at a higher quantity the plant was designed to generate electricity 24 hours a day even during cloudy or unfavorable conditions all thanks to the energy stored in the molten salt and while there were strong advantages to this technology once the plant began operation the issues became widespread the first challenge was in the complexity of the system as it was the first of its kind in the United States in 2016 just one year into the plant's operation a leak in the molten salt tank caused the plant to shut down for an entire year it then reopened in July of 2017. once the issue was resolved but the problems didn't stop there in 2019 NV Energy which was the project sole customer terminated its contract with the solar farm due to a variety of issues with the technology it was using reports have stated that the contractors ultimately terminated due to the project being over budget and the facility not being able to produce the amount of energy that was originally expected this was of course due to the technical flaws with the Project's design it also turns out that this type of solar energy generation was much more expensive than traditional solar Farms while the Crescent Dune solar energy project was costing NV Energy roughly 135 dollars per megawatt hour traditional solar Farms were charging less than thirty dollars and while the argument can be made that the Crescent Dunes facility was operating 24 hours a day and producing more energy when it came to the cost it didn't make a lot of sense to continue operating the plant nevertheless the contract was ultimately terminated and production was brought to a halt this time resulted in the plant not generating any electricity for more than two years as there was no customer to purchase it and while the technical flaws of the Project's design were a key cause of its major challenges throughout the past few years the financial state of the company tenopa solar energy was ultimately the key cause behind the Project's failure due to no income from the facility for nearly two years the company filed for bankruptcy in July of 2020. reports have stated that at the time a bankruptcy the company still owed more than 400 million dollars to the U.S department of energy for the loan it received to construct the project with no sufficient income repaying this loan may prove to be a long-term problem for the company to solve at the time of bankruptcy the company's debts on the project exceeded 400 million dollars and to this day it's still unclear as to how much of this still needs to be repaid after years of delays problems and bankruptcies this project seemed to have no future with insufficient technology and a bankrupt company the future of the Crescent Dune solar energy project did not look strong but all of this took a drastic change in 2021. a report from the U.S Bureau of Reclamation stated that the project had resumed full operation and electricity production in July of 2021. this was due to the high demand for electricity throughout the state reports have stated that since the plant was not in operation for such a long period of time most of the technological issues were able to be solved and that the plan is functioning properly today failure of the Crescent Dune solar energy project is an important lesson in the challenges and risks associated with renewable energy technology with issues ranging from the complexity of the design to the cost of development all of this highlights the need for careful planning and oversight when undertaking new types of renewable energy projects today this facility is in full operation and solar energy continues to expand across the state of Nevada well this project went through a number of challenges during development today it's proving to be extremely beneficial for the state with electricity demand continuing to increase but for now it seems that this project is back on track and is headed for a successful future ahead thank you for watching and please consider subscribing if you enjoyed the video