The field of mirrors in the desert was once the future of solar energy. Why is it closing after just 11 years?

Ivanpah was the largest concentrated solar power facility in the world when it opened in 2014, just over a decade, it`s slated to close.

From a distance, the Ivanpah solar plant looks like a shimmering lake in the Mojave Desert. Up close, it’s a vast alien-like installation of hundreds of thousand of mirrors pointed at three towers, each taller than the Statue of Liberty.

When this plant opened near the California-Nevada border in early 2014, it was pitched as the future of solar power. Just over a decade later, it’s closing, CNN writes.

The plant’s co-owner NRG Energy announced in January it was unwinding contracts with power companies and, subject to regulatory approval, would begin closing the plant in early 2026, readying the site to potentially be repurposed for a new kind of solar energy.

For some, Ivanpah now stands as a huge, shiny monument to wasted tax dollars and environmental damage — campaign groups long criticized the plant for its impact on desert wildlife. For others, failures like this are a natural part of the race to find the winning solutions for the clean energy transition.

One of the key selling points of this solar technology is the ability to store heat, allowing the production of electricity at night or when the sun isn’t shining without needing batteries.

The project got buy-in from the government with $1.6 billion in Department of Energy loan guarantees, and from utilities Pacific Gas & Electric Company and Southern California Edison, which both entered long-term agreements to buy Ivanpah’s power.

First, the technology proved finnicky and never quite worked as well as intended, said Jenny Chase, a solar analyst at BloombergNEF.

These kinds of plants “are just technically really difficult to operate,” Chase told CNN. The technology relies on mirrors tracking the sun exactly. “It’s really hard to get those all lined up perfectly and keep them lined up at all times.”

But perhaps the biggest problem for Ivanpah is that photovoltaic solar — the technology used in solar panels — became really, really cheap.

- Today in some parts of the world you can buy a solar panel for the price of a fence - said Chase. When Ivanpah was built, no one could have imagined that photovoltaic cells would become so cheap, and batteries and energy storage would advance so much.

A spokesperson for NRG said prices were competitive when the power agreements were signed in 2009. But over time, advancements in other types of solar technology “led to more efficient, cost effective and flexible options for producing reliable clean energy.”

In January, NRG finalized negotiations with PG&E to terminate power purchase agreements which were supposed to end in 2039. This “will provide significant savings for California ratepayers,” the company’s spokesperson said.