VA Solar Projects Raise Questions, Concerns

Any time a federal agency spending hundreds of million of dollars on projects that go awry, that is significant news to report. When that agency is the Department of Veterans Affairs, the agency tasked with being stewards of tax dollars intended for veterans, that story becomes even bigger.

According to a recent report published by Washington Free Beacon, the Department of Veterans Affairs has spent in excess of $400 million in recent years in an effort to supply medical facilities with solar power. According to the report, some of the those projects were badly delayed. Some never produced a single electron. Those findings were confirmed in a scathing review by the inspector general of the Department of Veterans Affairs, a report generated at the request of Arkansas Sens. John Boozman and French Hill, after an Arkansas project failed to meet expectations.

Read the Inspector’s Report Here

Of the fifteen solar projects awarded by the Department of Veterans Affairs between fiscal years 2010 and 2013 that were still in progress, the inspector general audited eleven of those projects. The investigation found that only two projects were fully complete. Thee eleven projects cost $95 million. Some were made more expensive by delays and poor planning.

“This occurred because of planning errors, design changes, a lengthy interconnection process, and contractor delays,” the inspector general concluded. “As a result, VA did not increase renewable energy for those solar projects in the time frame planned and incurred additional costs through needed contract modifications.”

As of this past July, five of the project were fully complete and eight were generating some amount of solar power. Some of the projects, including one in Little Rock, Arkansas, were not generating any electricity. In fact, the panels at the Little Rock facility were never turned on because they were incompatible with the local grid, a detail apparently never considered by project engineers. All of the projects were slated to be finished within twelve months. Instead, they took forty-two months on average to complete.

In total, the Department of Veterans Affairs has spent more than $400 million on its “green management program” since its inception in 2010.

“Whether it is a project as complex as hospital construction or one as simple as the proper installation of solar panels, VA continues to waste large amounts of taxpayer funds as a result of its own ineptitude,” Senator Hill said in a statement.