President Biden’s new Secretary of Energy, Jennifer Granholm, is ready to release $ 40 billion in Department of Energy loans, the former Michigan governor said on Wednesday at CERAWeek.
Granholm chose Jigar Shah, founder of SunEdison, to lead the loan program as Director of the Loan Program Office.
The DoE loan program has been in place for years and is responsible, according to IHS Markit, for supporting the first five utility-scale solar projects in the United States. More cruelly, the DoE loan program is also recognized for distributing $ 528 million to Solyndra – the solar panel maker that went bankrupt two years after receiving DoE funds.
The program, originally created in 2005 under President Bush, added a renewable energy component four years later, under the Obama administration.
The largest loan, issued in parts from 2014 to 2019, went to VOGTLE for $ 12 billion to build Vogtle Units 3 and 4 – something the DoE coined as “the country’s next generation of advanced nuclear reactors ”. The reactors are likely to miss their promised operating dates in November 2021.
The program’s second largest loan, issued in 2009, went to the Ford Motor Company, for $ 5.9 billion, with the aim of renovating 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 effort towards cleaner energy, with Granholm as a perfectly environmentally friendly second chair.
The $ 40 billion in funds have been available and awaiting disbursement for years, but with the new government, expectations are that we will see more clean energy funds being distributed.
By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com
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