President Biden’s new secretary of energy, Jennifer Granholm, is poised to release $ 40 billion in loans from the Department of Energy, the former Michigan governor said Wednesday at CERAWeek.
Granholm has selected Jigar Shah, founder of SunEdison, to lead the loan program as Director of the Loan Program Office.
The DoE’s loan program has been around for years and is responsible for supporting the first five utility-scale solar projects in the United States, according to IHS Markit. More indecently, the DoE’s loan program is also recognized for distributing $ 528 million to Solyndra – the solar panel manufacturer that went bankrupt two years after receiving DoE funds.
Originally set up in 2005 under US President Bush, the program added a renewable energy component four years later under President Obama.
The largest loan, issued in pieces from 2014 to 2019, went to VOGTLE in the amount of $ 12 billion to build Vogtle Units 3 & 4 – something the DoE conceived as “the country’s next generation of advanced nuclear reactors”. The reactors are likely to miss the promised November 2021 usage dates.
The second-largest loan in the program, issued in 2009, went to Ford Motor Company in the amount of $ 5.9 billion to refurbish facilities to improve fuel efficiency.
The two loans account for more than half of the nearly $ 30 billion in outstanding loans issued by the DoE.
The loan program is part of President Biden’s aggressive push for cleaner energy, with Granholm as a perfectly green second seat.
The $ 40 billion in funds have been available for years and have been awaiting disbursement for years, but with the new administration we expect more clean energy funds to be distributed.
By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com
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