The largest solar power plant of its type in the world — once promoted as a turning point in green energy — isn’t producing as much energy as planned.
One of the reasons is as basic as it gets: The sun isn’t shining as much as expected.
Sprawling across roughly 5 square miles of federal desert near the California-Nevada border, the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System opened in February, with operators saying it would produce enough electricity to power a city of 140,000 homes.
So far, however, the plant is producing about half of its expected annual output for 2014, according to calculations by the California Energy Commission.