From a distance, the Ivanpah solar plant looks like a shimmering lake in the Mojave Desert. Up close, it’s a vast alien-like installation of hundreds of thousand of mirrors pointed at three ...

A once cutting-edge solar energy power plant in the Mojave Desert that looks like something out of a science fiction movie may be facing its last days, according to its builder and largest customer.

When this plant opened near the California-Nevada border in early 2014, it was pitched as the future of solar power. Just over a decade later, it’s closing. The plant’s co-owner NRG Energy ...