💥New Chapter 22 Bankruptcy Filing - Tonopah Solar Energy LLC💥
Long-failing solar energy project collapses into BK again, seeks sale.
On January 21, 2026, Tonopah Solar Energy LLC (the “debtor” or “company”), the owner and operator of a “first of its kind” sure-as-f*ck-looks-cool 👆 net 110-megawatt concentrated solar energy power plant in Nye County Nevada … filed a chapter 22 bankruptcy case in the District of Delaware (Judge Stickles) ... which, we can all agree, is decidedly …
Apparently, the power plant is the first utility-scale concentrated solar power plant in the USA that’s fully integrated with energy storage tech (including at night!). And, apparently, despite its unique technology, it’s subject to un-unique technological complexities and is therefore complex as all-utter hell to maintain, therefore suffering from operational failures associated with, among other things, hot salt tank leaks — which is kind of a big deal since the energy production depends upon the melting of hot salt to begin with. We’ll stop there because we’re not even going to feign pretending to know what the f*ck any of that means but it seems nobody at the company does either because this has been a persistent problem since March ‘19* and, in fact, the company now finds itself in bankruptcy court for a second time as a result, 😬.
The leaks — in tandem with the debtor’s inability to nail down a long-term power purchase agreement … you know, to generate something called revenue — doomed the debtor. That’s because the debtor has a bunch of funded debt that it had hoped, back in ‘20 when it was issued, it’d be able to service.
How much debt? $173mm (secured, exclusive of accrued and unpaid interest/expenses/costs/fees), upped from $164mm in August ‘25 in connection with an amendment and forbearance agreement with the debtor’s lender, Crescent Dune Finance Inc. (“CDF”), an affiliate of the debtor’s direct parent, Crescent Dunes Investment LLC (“CDI”). Having a lender affiliated with the parent can be a helpful thing: these guys have been piling money into this cash incineration machine hand over fist for years (both in debt and equity … a point counsel was keen to drive home); they’ve also permitted the debtor to stop making payments on the debt for more than two years, allowing the debtor to remain current on all of its ordinary course trade debt, including through the filing of the chapter 22 (hence why the top 30 creditors list doesn’t even include 30 creditors).**