Watchdog Alert: Tracking Energy Loan Guarantees

The topic of federal loan guarantees for energy projects, once very low profile, has become prime media territory with the bankruptcy of the solar company Solyndra after it received one of these loans, likely leaving taxpayers on the hook for much of the money. But Solyndra is far from the only company that has received a guarantee for a large sum of money.

As of the end of September 2011, the DoE Loan Programs Office says it had issued loans or loan guarantees, or offered conditional commitments for loan guarantees, for about $40 billion to support about 40 solar, wind, geothermal, biofuels, nuclear, energy efficiency, energy storage, battery storage, or transmission projects.

• DoE, Loan Programs Office.

Seventeen of these loan guarantees, for $9.3 billion for projects in at least 33 states, were handed out in August and September 2011. All these projects, and the others awarded earlier, may be worth digging into to see how those companies, and their projects, are doing.

The recent awards were:

SOLAR

• AZ (Maricopa Co.), $337 million, Mesquite Solar 1 Project, Mesquite Solar 1, LLC/ Sempra Energy (Sept. 28, 2011).
• AZ (Yuma Co.), $967 million, Agua Caliente Solar Project, Agua Caliente Solar, LLC/NRG Solar, LLC (Aug. 5, 2011).
• CA (Riverside Co.), $1.5 billion, Desert Sunlight Project, Desert Sunlight 250, LLC/Desert Sunlight 300, LLC/ Goldman Sachs Lending Partners, LLC (Sept. 30, 2011).
• CA (Riverside Co.), $852 million, Genesis Solar Project, NextEra Energy Resources, LLC/Credit Suisse AG (Aug. 26, 2011).
• CA (San Luis Obispo Co.), $1.2 billion, California Valley Solar Ranch Project, SunPower Corporation (Sept. 30, 2011).
• CA (Los Angeles Co.), $646 million, Antelope Valley Solar Ranch 1 Project, AV Solar Ranch 1, LLC (Sept. 30, 2011).
• CO (near Alamosa), $91 million, Alamosa Solar Generating Project, Cogentrix of Alamosa, LLC (Sept. 9, 2011).
• MA (Lexington), $150 million, solar component manufacturing plant, 1366 Technologies, Inc. (Sept. 8, 2011).
• NV (near Tonopah), $737 million, Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project, Tonopah Solar Energy, LLC (Sept. 28, 2011).
• OR (Portland) and CA (San Jose), $197 million, solar component manufacturing plants, SoloPower, Inc. (Aug. 19, 2011).
• 28 states, $1.4 billion, Project Amp, Prologis/NRG Energy/ Bank of America Merrill Lynch (Sept. 30, 2011); for more information, see the TipSheet of July 6, 2011.
• 33 states (residences on up to 124 military bases), $334 million, SolarStrong Project, SolarCity Corporation/USRG Renewable Finance/Bank of America Merrill Lynch (Sept. 7, 2011) .

BIOMASS

• IA (Emmetsburg), $105 million, Project LIBERTY (cellulosic ethanol plant), POET (Sept. 23, 2011).
• KS (Hugoton), $132 million, cellulosic ethanol plant, Abengoa Bioenergy Biomass of Kansas, LLC (Sept. 29, 2011).

GEOTHERMAL

• NV (Pershing, Lander, and Elko counties), $350 million, 3 power plants (JerseyValley, McGinness Hills, and Tuscarora), Ormat Nevada, Inc./ John Hancock Life Insurance Company (Sept. 23, 2011).

WIND

• ME (near Roxbury), $102 million, Record Hill wind project, Record Hill Wind, LLC/Wagner Wind Energy I, LLC (New Hampshire)/Independence Wind, LLC (Maine)/Yale University Endowment (Aug. 15, 2011).
• NH (Coos Co.), $169 million, wind farm, Granite Reliable Power, LLC/BAIF Granite Holdings, LLC/Freshet Wind Energy, LLC/ WestLB AG (Sept. 23, 2011).