Ivanpah's Special Connection to The Lord of the Rings

Ivanpah’s Special Connection to The Lord of the Rings

What do GTM Research analysts spend their time thinking about?

Eric Wesoff October 31, 2013

Eric Wesoff

Editor-at-Large
Greentech Media

Eric Wesoff is Editor-at-Large at Greentech Media. Prior to joining GTM, Eric Wesoff founded Sage Marketing Partners in 2000 to provide sales and marketing-consulting services to venture-capital firms and their portfolio companies in the alternative energy and telecommunications sectors. Mr. Wesoff has become a well-known, respected authority and speaker in these fields.

His expertise covers solar power, fuel cells, biofuels and advanced batteries. His strengths are in market research and analysis, business development and due diligence for investors. He frequently consults for energy startups and Silicon Valley's premier venture capitalists.

I don't even know what Isengard is -- but apparently this has the GTM solar analysts all aflutter.

Here's Isengard. According to the Lord of the Rings Wiki, Isengard "was one of the three Fortresses of Gondor." (Note that Ivanpah 1 is one of only three large-scale CSP facilities.)

It's extremely hot in Isengard. The Mojave is one of the hottest places on earth (but it's a dry heat).

Isengard is made of a circular stone wall surrounding a plain, in the center of which was the Tower of Orthanc. Ivanpah is circular and employs about 170,000 large mirrors, in the center of which is a large tower and boiler. Isengard was built by Orcs, I imagine, while Ivanpah was built by more than 500 well-trained humans. Ivanpah had a desert tortoise issue which was extensively (and expensively) dealt with. Isengard had a tortoise-clearing event at which the tortoises were shelled, roasted like pistachios, and washed down with a tasty mead.

According to the LOTR wiki, Isengard came into the possession of the evil Saruman and became his personal realm until his defeat during the War of the Ring. Alan Salzman of VantagePoint was involved in this project.