IID solar dish in question
Imperial Valley Press 3/27/07
And failed communication within IID may be part of the problem.
During a recent IID meeting, district board members asked to revisit the solar dish issue over concerns with a contract IID had negotiated with the company that was to build the dishes — Amonix of Torrance.
The decision to revisit the matter came months after the district board had approved the $5.4 million funding for the project and backed the partnership with SDSU.
The project was hailed then as both a move by IID to tap into solar energy as a resource and as an educational tool.
SDSU was to develop a facility at its Brawley campus to harness the information gathered from the solar dishes. The goal was to create a classroom setting where solar energy could be studied by students.
As a pilot project, the plan was to build a small array of solar dishes, each standing about 45 feet high and each with the ability to rotate to follow the sun so that the mirrors within the dishes can catch the sun at all hours of the day.
But last week board members said a contract with Amonix to build the solar dishes was amended and signed before the board was told of the changes.
“As president I felt accommodations were made to the contract, which should have come to the board for approval,” board President Stella Mendoza said.
The accommodations she spoke of relate to a move by IID staffers to break the solar project into five smaller projects as Amonix, a startup company using its own technology for the solar dishes, could not obtain bonding — what equates to insurance — to cover the entire project.
Under the amended contract, the company would build one part of the project at a time so that it could receive bonding for each phase.
General Manager Charles Hosken signed the amended agreement and last week he apologized to the IID board for doing so without first seeking its approval.
Board members now say they want the contract brought back to them for reconsideration.
There was no information on how soon that would occur.
“The board wants to take a fresh look at the project,” IID spokesman Kevin Kelley said.
That fresh look includes both revisiting the contract and taking a new look at the technology that was to be used in developing the solar dishes.
Stephen Roeder, dean of the SDSU-Imperial Valley campuses in Calexico and Brawley, said last week he is hopeful the project can still come to fruition.