Solar Industry Update

• . Concentrating Solar Power Update Chinese CSP company Cosin Solar currently has 100 MW of projects operational and another 900 MW under construction, making it the first company to supply 1 GW of tower projects. HeliosCSP interviewed an engineer who has been working on the 110-MW U.S. Crescent Dunes project-the first large-scale, high-storage CSP plant, which began operation in 2015. - - Crescent Dunes is essentially recommissioning itself now, slowly bring the plant back online from several repairs. ACS, a multinational EPC firm, indirectly purchased the plant from the original owner, SolarReserve. It is currently selling power to NV Energy, which was originally under a PPA with the contract until the project defaulted in 2019. They are selling electricity exclusively at night or when their storage tanks are full. Reason for operational challenges: (1) The hot tanks were poorly designed the first time (for cost-cutting reasons) and poorly welded when they were replaced. (The welders were not used to working with those type of alloys, causing the tank to crack.) They've been installed now a third time. (2) One of the two superheaters sat with water in it and rusted; it has yet to come online. - These expenses are much less than the estimated $250M it would take to satisfy BLM requirements for removing the plant (SolarReserve initially estimated it would cost $7M). NREL | 6

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