Solar Trust of America was an integrated solar industrial solutions company founded in 2009 and based in

Oakland Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay A ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. The company was developing the

Blythe Solar Power Project The Blythe Mesa Solar Power Project, also known as the Blythe Solar Energy Center, is a 485 megawatt (MW AC) photovoltaic power plant near the city of Blythe in Riverside County, California. It occupies about 2,000 acres of public land ...

, the largest solar plant in the world in the

Mojave Desert The Mojave Desert ( ; mov, Hayikwiir Mat'aar; es, Desierto de Mojave) is a desert in the rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada mountains in the Southwestern United States. It is named for the indigenous Mojave people. It is located primarily in ...

, among other projects. The company was noted for having turned down a $2.1 billion

loan guarantee A loan guarantee, in finance, is a promise by one party (the guarantor) to assume the debt obligation of a borrower if that borrower defaults. A guarantee can be limited or unlimited, making the guarantor liable for only a portion or all of the d ...

by the

Department of Energy A Ministry of Energy or Department of Energy is a government department in some countries that typically oversees the production of fuel and electricity; in the United States, however, it manages nuclear weapons development and conducts energy-rel ...

(DOE) for the construction of the Blythe project. Uwe T. Schmidt was CEO. On April 2, 2012, the company filed for

Chapter 11 Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code (Title 11 of the United States Code) permits reorganization under the bankruptcy laws of the United States. Such reorganization, known as Chapter 11 bankruptcy, is available to every business, wheth ...

bankruptcy protection Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor ...

History

Solar Trust of America was founded in 2009 to develop utility scale solar energy projects in American Southwest. The company was a joint venture between

Solar Millennium Solar Millennium was a German company globally active in the renewable energy sector founded in 1998 in Erlangen, Germany, which is specialized in the designing and implementation of solar thermal power plants. The main activities are site selectio ...

and

Ferrostaal Ferrostaal is a German-owned industrial services company. It has 4,400 employees and an annual turnover of around 1.6 billion euros (2008), and has a market presence in around 40 countries. The company's activities are focused in two areas: Proje ...

. As of September 19, 2013 the assets of the company have been liquidated per order of U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross and all operational activities have ceased. The case is In re: Solar Trust of America LLC, case number 12-11136, in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware.

Technology

The company's projects employed parabolic trough concentrated solar power technology. Specifically, Solar Trust of America uses the new Heliotrough technology, developed by Flagsol GmbH. Heliotrough reduces costs by about 20% compared to its predecessor Skal-ET. The cost reduction is achieved through a 10% increase in efficiency. Due to improvements in reflector geometry, 99% of solar irradiation can now be reflected onto the absorber pipe, compared to 95% previously. In June 2010, Heliotrough won the "Concentrated Solar Power Innovation Award" at the 4th Concentrated Solar Power Conference in San Francisco.

Projects

Solar Trust of America had 2,000 MW of solar projects in advanced stages of permitting at locations throughout California and Nevada, including the world’s largest permitted

solar power plant A photovoltaic power station, also known as a solar park, solar farm, or solar power plant, is a large-scale grid-connected photovoltaic power system (PV system) designed for the supply of merchant power. They are different from most building- ...

facility near Blythe, CA. Other projects were proposed near Palen, CA and Amargosa Valley, NV.

The Blythe Solar Power Project

Solar Trust of America was developing the Blythe Solar Power Project, originally specified as a 1,000 MW

concentrated solar power Concentrated solar power (CSP, also known as concentrating solar power, concentrated solar thermal) systems generate solar power by using mirrors or lenses to concentrate a large area of sunlight into a receiver. Electricity is generated when ...

(CSP) plant in east

Riverside County, California Riverside County is a County (United States), county located in the southern California, southern portion of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, the population was 2,418,185, making it the fourth-most ...

. The multibillion-dollar Blythe Project would have included four independent 250 MW plants that combined could have delivered 1,000 MW of nominal generating capacity to the California power grid. On October 25, 2010, Solar Millennium LLC, the development subsidiary of Solar Trust of America, received full permitting by the

Bureau of Land Management The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior responsible for administering federal lands. Headquartered in Washington DC, and with oversight over , it governs one eighth of the country's la ...

(BLM) to develop of public land for the project. Originally intended to use concentrated thermal technology, the planned first phase of the Blythe Solar Power Project was changed to photovoltaics in 2011. The company cited both the plunging price of photovoltaic panels and the comparative ease of obtaining commercial financing for the more conventional design. The project was sold off to NextEra Energy in 2012, and land clearing for the project began in 2015.

Loan guarantee

Though it had successfully sought a Department of Energy a $2.1 billion loan guarantee based on its original design, the technology change caused Solar Trust to turn down the federal assistance. The loan guarantee, conditionally approved in April 2011, would have been the largest ever made by the DOE for a renewable energy project, and the second largest overall in the history of the program. The company did not receive any taxpayer funds.Solar company bankrupt despite DOE pledge
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Notes

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Solar Trust Of America Solar energy companies of the United States