INTRODUCTORY SPECIAL INTRODUCTORY ... - PHOTON Info
INTRODUCTORY SPECIAL INTRODUCTORY ... - PHOTON Info
INTRODUCTORY SPECIAL INTRODUCTORY ... - PHOTON Info
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48<br />
Business<br />
DOE in the spotlight<br />
Solyndra first applied to the DOE’s loan<br />
guarantee program in December 2006.<br />
This program was created under the 2005<br />
Energy Policy Act, which authorized<br />
the DOE to dispense $47 billion in loan<br />
guarantees for innovative technologies.<br />
The federal stimulus bill, known as the<br />
American Recovery and Reinvestment<br />
Act, signed into law in February, appro-<br />
priated an additional $60 million to the<br />
DOE for loan guarantees for power gen-<br />
eration and manufacturing projects. But<br />
it took some time for the DOE to publish<br />
rules on how to obtain the new loans.<br />
After months of anticipation among US<br />
PV companies, the DOE released a solici-<br />
tation announcement in July detailing<br />
how and when to apply for $30 billion<br />
in loan guarantees. The first application<br />
deadline was September 14 th .<br />
A flat roof with a Solyndra system on the left, and<br />
conventional crystalline modules on the right.<br />
Given the large sums of money in-<br />
volved, and the six month wait to roll out<br />
the loan program, the DOE finds itself in<br />
the political spotlight. Solyndra’s Kelly<br />
said that the agency’s loan guarantee staff<br />
applied »a lot of extra scrutiny« to finaliz-<br />
ing the Solyndra loan, perhaps explaining<br />
why the negotiations took more than five<br />
months. As the first loan guarantee recipi-<br />
ent since the 1980s, Solyndra was appar-<br />
ently a guinea pig of sorts. According to<br />
Kelly, the DOE used its negotiation pro-<br />
cess with the company to iron out – and<br />
clearly define – its loan guarantee process<br />
for future recipients.<br />
Nonetheless, compared to his experi-<br />
ence with the DOE under the Bush admin-<br />
istration – when it took two and a half<br />
years for the company to move from its<br />
initial proposal in December 2006 to the<br />
conditional loan guarantee announce-<br />
ment in March – the loan finalization<br />
process under the Obama administra-<br />
tion was »fast,« says Kelly.<br />
The big question now is, when will<br />
the DOE award the remainder of the<br />
$30 billion in loan guarantees? The July<br />
solicitation announcement did not pro-<br />
vide a clear answer, only divulging that<br />
the agency’s objective was to support<br />
projects »most assured of commenc-<br />
ing construction, and hence having<br />
a loan guarantee issued, no later than<br />
September 30th, 2011.« Secretary Chu<br />
provided little additional information<br />
at the groundbreaking: »We’re going to<br />
make many more awards in the weeks<br />
and months ahead.« Certainly, US solar<br />
companies are watching closely how<br />
this will play out. mdm<br />
November 2009