FEDS END NEW ENERGY LOAN BACKING

DOE Wrapping Up Renewable-Energy Project Loan Guarantee Program
Cassandra Sweet, May 17, 2011 (Dow Jones Newswires via Nasdaq)

"The U.S. Department of Energy…has stopped accepting applications for loan guarantees to help finance new solar, wind or other renewable energy facilities...[Some] applications [are still] pending…The loan guarantee program for renewable energy generation projects, called " Section 1705," after the portion of the 2009 Recovery Act that supports it, expires Sept. 30 and only projects that can start construction…by that date will [still] be considered…

"The agency has issued roughly $1.6 billion in loan guarantees for 19 renewable energy projects to date. Loan guarantees for roughly $800 million in remaining funds will be issued to companies that have already applied…whose projects are most likely to meet the Sept. 30 construction deadline…The DOE placed another group of applications "on hold"…[I]f the program received more funding in the future, those applications could be revived."

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"The DOE[has] notified [involved] companies… First Solar Inc. (FSLR) said pending applications it filed for solar farms it is developing were moving forward…SunPower Corp. (SPWRA, SPWRB), which obtained a $1.2 billion conditional loan guarantee for a 250-MW solar farm it plans to build in California, has not applied for any additional loan guarantees…

"First Solar Inc. (FSLR) received a $967 million conditional loan guarantee for a 395-megawatt solar farm it plans to build in Arizona. First Solar's project finance team met with DOE staff… to move the company's pending applications forward…"

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"In a separate announcement, the DOE said… it awarded a $90.6 million conditional loan guarantee to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) unit Cogentrix to build a 30-megawatt solar farm in Colorado.

"U.S. solar-panel maker Ascent Solar Technologies Inc. (ASTI), which had applied for a government loan guarantee--under a different DOE program--to expand a factory, said last month that it withdrew that application…[because] requirements under the loan guarantee program did not correlate with [its] business plan…"