Solar dishes with rare technology to be auctioned

People searching for 60 massive satellite-looking solar dishes and willing to move the entire facility and reassemble it without instructions are in luck.

An April 17 online auction thought to be one of the first of its kind will offer the bankrupt Maricopa Solar power plant in Peoria, which uses a rare solar-thermal technology.

Solar equipment frequently is auctioned from bankruptcies, but not this type, said auctioneer David Barkoff of Heritage Global Partners, which is handling the sale for the bankruptcy trustee.

"Power plants or power-generation equipment, yes, (we auction) lots of it," he said. "But I don't think a solar-thermal power plant has come online for sale ever."

The company that was running the power plant with a license to the technology from Stirling Energy, Maricopa Solar LLC, also declared bankruptcy and now is liquidating the power plant. But not the intellectual property to build and run it.

Stirling used a complex technology with mirrors focusing the sun's heat on an engine in the middle of each dish. The engines converted the heat energy into motion, and the motion was used to make electricity.

Stirling built six of its so-called SunCatchers in New Mexico at Sandia National Laboratories, and then the larger demonstration plant in Peoria. Stirling's plans to build tens of thousands of SunCatchers in California and Texas never were fulfilled.

Other companies use similar "dish-Stirling" technology, but they are far less popular than flat, black solar panels now common on rooftops. And Stirling's competitors' dishes are not identical to those in Peoria.

Maricopa Solar's assets were listed at between $50,000 and $100,000 in its petition for bankruptcy. Barkoff said that the opening bid would not be disclosed until the auction, and he declined to estimate what a buyer might pay for the equipment.

Bidders must pay $25,000 just to register for the sale, but that's only the beginning of the complications they will face if they buy the power plant.

The plant took about four months to build, but the buyer must sign a contract agreeing to remove all of the equipment no later than April 26, within nine days of the auction, according to the bankruptcy court order authorizing the sale.

Each of the solar dishes stands nearly 40 feet tall, meaning potential bidders need lots of vacant land, a crane and plenty of transportation to move the dishes.

The dishes are connected to the power grid, so the buyer must also coordinate with Salt River Project to safely de-energize the facility and take the equipment, separating it from SRP's transformers and other equipment.

The power plant also is connected to a small pipeline of flammable hydrogen gas compressed to 3,000 pounds per square inch, and the gas lines must be purged with nitrogen before removal, according to the 42-page decommissioning plan buyers will be required to follow.

And there's another catch: The plant's instruction manual will be sold separately.

On March 15, the bankruptcy trustee for Stirling Energy Systems filed an objection to the sale of any "confidential information" in the upcoming auction, stating that those assets belonged to Stirling, not the Maricopa Solar affiliate auctioning the power plant.

The bankruptcy judge approved the objection, apparently preventing the sale of any documents that would explain how the complex machines work, including operation and maintenance manuals, specifications for the power plant's weather stations, hydrogen stations, communications, computer hard drives and even the SunCatcher product descriptions.

Angela Abreu, a lawyer in New Jersey representing the Stirling trustee, confirmed that Stirling considers the intellectual property from the company to be assets owned by Stirling.

She said the company is working on a plan to sell those assets, but she would not say how or to whom.

Lothar Goernitz, the trustee for Maricopa Solar, said he would prefer that Stirling offer the intellectual property along with the solar equipment, which he is responsible for liquidating. But he said Stirling's bankruptcy trustee did not want to sell the information along with the equipment.

"If (a buyer) wants to use the intellectual property and copyrights and whatnot, yes, they are going to have to deal with Stirling Energy Systems," he said. "But I have not come to the conclusion that there is no way that someone will come and buy this, disassemble it and use it."

He said he has been contacted by a variety of interested buyers, including some from overseas that could use the power system in remote areas. He also said that because other companies use similar dish-Stirling technology, that a buyer might not need the manuals to use the plant or parts of it.

"If you had 20 of these dishes in Sudan ... this would be a much more proficient way of generating electricity," he said. "There are places in the world where this technology makes some sense. The obvious economic concern is how to disassemble it, relocate it and set it up that is cost productive."

Barkoff said 16 parties have signed non-disclosure agreements, which allows them to see details of the equipment.

Barkoff would not say how many have paid the $25,000 to become registered bidders, but he said he has had interest from educational institutions, technical colleges, utilities and scrap-metal dealers.