A company once pursued for its promise of green jobs will cost the City of Portland $5 million after defaulting on a $10 million state loan.
Portland paid millions to lure SoloPower Systems to the city but will now have to pay much of the $8.1 million left on a state loan the company failed to pay. The Portland Business Journal reported Wednesday that the company defaulted on a $10 million loan from the Oregon Department of Energy. It stopped making payments in September. Portland made two payments of $119,000 toward the loan in April and May, said Oregon Department of Energy spokeswoman Rachel Wray.
Portland will now have to make $119,000 monthly payments toward the company’s debt through October 2020 because former Mayor Sam Adams agreed in 2011 to guarantee $5 million of the state loan.
Thanks, Sam, you’re just the smartest dude ever.
The company opened the solar panel plant in North Portland after receiving subsidies, tax breaks, and publicly financed loans that totaled well over $200 Million; $197 Million from the feds, $20 Million from the state of Oregon, $20 Million by way of a state “business energy tax credit”, and nearly $18 Million in tax abatement. In fact, SoloPower wasn’t even supposed to tap into the $197 Million federal money until they “ramp into the second, third, and fourth production lines.”
Instead, SoloPower blew through all of the money in less than a year. They opened in September of 2012, and by June of 2013, they were shutting down the plant.
ht/ JBinNM
Ugh. These people can’t even wipe their own arse correctly.
It just makes more sense to shut local governments down 100% and let the community go back to funding their own schools, roads, police, fire. Dirt roads? Ok. 1 room school houses? Ok.
Gov’t has proven itself worse that the original problem.
Monorail salesmen.
Blowing through a Quarter Billion.
In one short year.
That is some Soviet sized corrupt stupidity.
The solar energy scam made many $millionaires.
Not from their failed businesses and pie in the sky bogus products, it was Government Political Grants, property tax abatement, loans and taxpayer repayment guarantees.
These same $millionaire scam artists are not held responsible or accountable for any of the loans, fleecing of taxpayers or the clean up of hazardous materials they leave behind.
Great headline BFH. Another unicorn fart scam perpetrated by government stupidity.
I just got a kitten who is forever putting his nose, paws, or tail into things that will hurt, maim, or kill him. Seems Portlanders suffer from the same affliction. The difference, of course, is that the kitten is 2 months old, and Portland is around 185 years old.
My money’s on the kitten.
So another $200 million fraud can be added to the legacy of Obama. I’ll bet if an enterprising young reporter wanted to make himself a name and a shelf full of Pulitzer Prizes he/she could go after some of these scams and show where the money actually went. Of course, they’d have to survive the Democrat Party Department of Vince Foster but if they were smart and nimble….
That’s a whole lotta P’s
Profiteers Pick pockets pound pompous pussies in Portland
Painfully Pass
Oh gee, what did they spend all that money on. (scratches head)
Hookers and blow.
You know what this like?
The corrupt fly-by-night railroad companies of the mid-19th century that went into business solely to get the federal grant money.
Only actually, those corrupt fly-by-night railroad companies were more honest. They did build the railroads. The railroads and rolling stock would fall apart after a year or two but they actually did put them on line.
Why do only Democrats get away with this shit?
Abandoned solar + thousands of windmills simply abandoned when the taxpayer subsidies ran out. Some of them are still spinning, chopping up birds, but they are not hooked up to the grid.
Cash for clunker energy schemes.
solar panels are one of the biggest scams of the 21st Century … the average effective life of them is 5-7 years … at max … 10 years they are totally ineffective & are in critical need of replacement
btw, their ‘effectiveness’ is practically nil … without output storage (energy-inefficient batteries) they’re less than useless
… I’m open to proof that I am wrong …. solar energy via silicone panels, so far, has proven to be unsustainable
MOLON,
The technology is just not
there yet Bro.There is mono & poly crystal
panels 13% 20% efficient…..
Another big scam of the solar panel industry is the free installation of panels they put on houses. Tell you all the money you are going to be saving. Until you see the fine print and find out after a year or two, they start raise your rates and find out your paying more per kwh than if you had just stayed with the local Electric company.
Then the credits you get for the excess electricity, sold back to the power company, go to the solar company and not your pocket. Then the real hidden gem is when you find out your credit score just took a big hit or encounter a massive roadblock to selling your house when you discover you have a tax lien on the house, placed there by the solar company until the panels are paid off. They say that’s just a myth, as I was told by a couple of door to door sellers, until I pulled out the ole smart phone and googled it for them.
Was at the Vancouver, Washington AMTRAK station last week. Station overlooks a massive steel recycling plant. Workers were busy cutting up wind mill towers. As scandalous, inefficient wind mills are abandoned, the government is going to forced to pay to have them removed. Those who profited from wind and solar scams should be brought to court.