ORACLE BLOOM AND YUCCA WANT TO USE TAXPAYER DOLLARS TO SUBSIDIZE MAINTENANCE OF THE FUEL CELL POWER PLANT

Yucca has submitted a new air permit application where they will install 2,462 megawatts of Bloom fuel cells but only operate with a maximum output of 1,600 megawatts. This is a capacity factor just under 65% or put more simply the size of the power station is overbuilt by 53.9%. Bloom fuel cells degrade over time and require service and maintenance that Bloom charges to its customers. When new fuel cells are installed, the IRS grants the owner of the fuel cells a 30% investment tax credit on the fully installed cost of the fuel cells. Therefore, if the fuel cells have an installed cost of $4.5 million per megawatt, taxpayers pay for $1.5 million per megawatt via the 30% investment tax credit. In addition to the investment tax credit, taxpayers will also pay 25% of the extra $4.5 million per megawatt through the deduction of accelerated depreciation of the larger unnecessary power plant. The extra 862 megawatts of fuel cells that Oracle, Bloom and Yucca want to install will cost US taxpayers something like $2.133 billion even though these fuel cells are essentially redundant and are simply there to lessen wear and tear on the power plant and save the owner on maintenance costs. Bloom will need less maintenance on fuel cells that only need to achieve 65% capacity factor. They may even run degraded fuel cells that are less efficient and yet meet the guaranteed level of 1,600 megawatts. Yucca and hence Oracle will save on maintenance costs each year. Interestingly Bloom typically guarantees clients a 95% capacity factor and in the case of the Jupiter project this 95% guarantee would mean only an addition of 84 megawatts over and above the 1,600 megawatts of output would be needed for the guaranteed nameplate capacity of the power plant. Yucca, Oracle and Bloom are trying to have TAXPAYERS foot the HUGE maintenance and service bill that otherwise they would have had to bear. This is OUTRAGEOUS and must not happen. Bloom is trying to pull a similar story in Vineland New jersey where they intend to install 328 megawatts of fuel cells at a data center but only guarantee 250 megawatts of available power. The Vineland case is a 75% capacity factor or a 31.2% over build. The New Mexico RIPOFF is higher than New Jersey, but both cases are INSANE and a waste of TAXPAYER DOLLARS. Let’s go back to Delaware back in 2019 when Bloom allowed two power stations to become dilapidated in only six years and then applied for “minor maintenance” permits for the power stations. But instead of minor maintenance Bloom and their tax equity partners Southern Power and Assured Guaranty fully replaced the power stations with new Bloom fuel cells and took $75 million in Investment tax credits from taxpayers. Bloom should have borne maintenance costs but instead taxpayers subsidized additional sales revenue on which they enjoyed a margin. Note that Lindsay Leveen has informed the IRS and the FBI of the tax fraud in Delaware. So far, the IRS has done nothing. The Delaware power stations total only 27.5 megawatts. Jupiter wants to install a power station that is 80 times larger than Delaware BLOOMDOGGLE in New Mexico. Lindsay Leveen wishes to inform authorities in New Mexico including the AG and the Governor that this fleecing of US taxpayers will happen if a 2,462-megawatt power plant is allowed to be built for project Jupiter. There are numerous environmental reasons to oppose this plant but ripping off taxpayers to avoid maintenance costs takes the cake. I implore the N.M. DOJ to investigate this unwarranted taking of tax credits.