I suppose the situation can be spun to one's liking or preconceived notions.
But in the interest of suppressing fake news, there are no taxpayer funds involved, and it is a pretty standard type contract in the utility industry.
1) The US Navy receives lease payments on the 72 acres of surplus land they have been trying to develop since the Naval Air Station units moved to Pensacola FL in the early 1990s
2) as per standard developer/owner/operator procedure, Solar Ranch obtained a Power Purchase Agreement with TVA, then used the PPA to obtain bank/bond financing for the $100 million capital investment in the project. As a private corporation, Solar Ranch it seems, did purchase solar arrays somehow connected to a Chinese corporation in 2016 or so. All good.
3) as the purchaser of the output, TVA's primary concerns are that Solar Ranch is a legal entity and that there are no adverse environmental impacts. As a directly-served customer of TVA, the Millington Naval facility has a long-term (all requirements) power supply contract with TVA and will receive its power from the project via TVA, not from Solar Ranch.
4) Utilities make these build/buy/lease decisions all of the time.
5) The primary benefit to TVA is that it did not have to go to the bond market to finance the capital costs, and then add additional risk of managing a type of facility in which it has no corporate experience. If Solar Ranch for some reason cannot deliver the contracted for 53 MW, I'm sure there are penalty clauses in the contract that would allow TVA legal redress (also standard procedure).
6) So, no taxpayer dollars, but political lobbying? All large utilities are subject to political lobbying, but TVA serves parts of seven states, and state politicians have very little influence in my experience. Its greatest political test in the last several years has been fighting off the coal lobby as it shutters its old inefficient coal units. |
