WASHINGTON – The Navy is losing money on new solar energy panels installed with stimulus funds at Naval Air Station Lemoore and other California bases, auditors say.

Lemoore, located in the sun-baked San Joaquin Valley in Kings County, was among 10 Navy and Marine Corps bases in California to have solar energy systems installed, even though they won't be cost-effective, the Pentagon auditors found.

As a result, taxpayers will be out $25.1 million, while the Obama administration finds another shadow cast over its use of stimulus funds for renewable energy.

"Officials incorrectly concluded that cost effectiveness was not required for planning (stimulus fund) energy projects," the Defense Department's Office of Inspector General noted in its 90-page report, released in late September. But Navy officials defend their work.

"There is a fundamental disagreement over the (auditors') conclusion that such projects were required to be cost effective," Principal Deputy Assistant Navy Secretary Roger Natsuhara stated, in the Navy's official response.

A Lemoore spokesperson on Friday referred questions to another Navy public information officer, who could not be reached.

The solar systems at Lemoore, Camp Pendleton, the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey and other California bases work fine; auditors identified no problems with their ability to convert sunlight into electricity using photovoltaic cells.

At Lemoore, the Navy spent about $2.8 million in stimulus funds to install the systems atop five buildings.

"This project not only repairs roofs of buildings in need of repair, but it also (will) generate an alternate source of energy," project manager Napoleon Biagtan said in a 2009 press release announcing the Lemoore project. "At the same time, these projects provide job opportunities for contractors and subcontractors."

Current law states that "an energy project is a justified investment only if it is cost-effective," according to the audit first cited by Time magazine. But Navy officials concluded the stimulus bill projects were exempt from this requirement.

Projects were selected in part for their "contribution to the achievement of energy goals rather than cost-effectiveness," Navy officials stated.

According to auditors, energy cost savings from the Lemoore solar panel system will recoup only an estimated 26 percent of the installation cost. At Naval Base San Diego, the solar panels will recoup only 16 percent of the cost, they said.

Over the course of 20 years, auditors concluded, the solar projects studied will fall $25.1 million short of paying for themselves.

The Obama administration's 2009 stimulus bill, formally called the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, steered lots of money into renewable energy projects. Some investments went bad. Most famously, the California-based solar energy firm Solyndra went bankrupt despite receiving $538 million in federal loan guarantees.

Congressional Republicans are now using the Solyndra case as a battering ram to attack the overall stimulus package, including its tilt toward renewable energy.

"Perhaps it is time to tell not only the solar industry, but every part of the energy sector, to get off the public dole and compete on your merit," Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Granite Bay, said in July.

The stimulus bill included $183 million for the Navy's solar energy projects.

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