1,300 MEGAWATTS OF FIRST SOLAR PROJECTS MOVE FULL SPEED AHEAD THANKS TO $4.5 BILLION IN DOE LOAN GUARANTEES

 

Just another day at the DOE Loan guarantee office -- providing $4.5 billion to three massive solar farms. The award will allow First Solar to supply approximately 20 million solar panels to the three projects from U.S.-based manufacturing sites. Yes, that's 20 million panels.

Any complaints about the speed of the Loan Guarantee program might have been squelched by the torrid pace of the series of loans provided in the last two months.  

A controversial $535 DOE guaranteed loan to cylindrical CIGS solar manufacturer Solyndra from the DOE in March of 2009 led to a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing with accusations of political favoritism and shady deals based on the fact that George Kaiser, one of the larger investors in Solyndra, through Argonaut Equity, was a bundler of campaign funds for the Obama presidential campaign. Solyndra's subsequent layoffs, and IPO-withdrawal placed it in the crosshairs of those opposing the allegedly less-than-transparent loan guarantee process. 

[Click above image to view more images of President Obama's visit to Solyndra plant]

First Solar is today's winner with the DOE offering:

• A conditional commitment for a $680 million loan guarantee to support the Antelope Valley Solar Ranch 1 project. 
• Conditional commitments for partial loan guarantees of $1.88 billion in loans to support the Desert Sunlight Solar Farm (DSSF) project, a 550-megawatt solar photovoltaic power plant project.  The DSSF would include three main components 1) the Solar Farm site, 2) a transmission line, and 3) a Southern California Edison (SCE) owned and operated substation, Red Bluff Substation. 
• And conditional commitments for partial loan guarantees of $1.93 billion in loans to support the Topaz Solar project, a 550 megawatt photovoltaic (PV) solar farm in the northwest corner of the Carrizo Plain in San Luis Obispo County, California. Located on the northwestern corner of the Carrisa Plains, the Topaz Solar Farm will produce sufficient electricity to power tens of thousands of California homes.  Click HERE for location map.

First Solar is sponsoring all three projects and will provide Cd-Te thin-film solar PV modules for the projects from a new manufacturing plant that has begun construction in Mesa, Arizona, as well as from its recently expanded manufacturing plant in Perrysburg, Ohio. 

The company expects that the projects will create a combined 1,400 jobs in California during peak construction.

Antelope Valley Solar Ranch 1 is a 230-megawatt project that will be located in the Antelope Valley area of the Western Mojave Desert, approximately 80 miles north of Los Angeles, California. The project is expected to generate 350 construction jobs and will feature a utility-scale deployment of innovative inverters with voltage regulation and monitoring technologies that are new to the U.S. market.  Power from the Antelope Valley Solar Ranch 1 project will be sold to Pacific Gas & Electric Company. 

First Solar is scheduled to begin construction on AV Solar Ranch One, the world’s biggest solar photovoltaic project, on July 5 in Antelope Valley. But Development Director Jack Pigott has just begun facing off with residents of Fairmont, the nearby community.  Fairmont’s people are adamant about on-the-ground issues, like fences that will surround the 230-megawatt installation, the effect of fenced-off desert on hiking, horseback riding and other recreation, the impact of dust coming off the cleared and leveled land, and of wildlife displaced to their yards in the process.

The Desert Sunlight Solar Farm (DSSF) project is a 550-megawatt site expected to generate 550 jobs during construction. It will be located on land managed by the Bureau of Land Management in eastern Riverside County, California. The Desert Sunlight project is expected to use 8.8 million First Solar modules. Project construction will take place in two phases; Phase I will generate 300 megawatts of power, which will be sold to the Pacific Gas & Electric Company, while Phase II will generate 250 MW of power, which will be sold to Southern California Edison.  The $1.88 billion in loans that are partially guaranteed by the DOE will be funded by a syndicate of institutional investors and commercial banks led by lead lender and lender-applicant, Goldman Sachs Lending Partners.

Topaz Solar Farm Project is another 550-megawatt project expected to generate 500 jobs during construction and will be located in eastern San Luis Obispo County, California. The Topaz Solar project will use over 8.5 million modules. The $1.93 billion in loans that are partially guaranteed by the DOE will be funded by a syndicate of institutional investors and commercial banks led by lead lender and lender-applicant, The Royal Bank of Scotland, which submitted the project under the Financial Institution Partnership Program (FIPP).

Other recent loan guarantees include $2 billion for two 250-megawatt CSP projects and $737 million for a CSP plus thermal storage project.

COMMENTARY:   Damn, you talk about taking advantage of the Department of Energy's Loan Guarantee programs, First Solar is the No 1 Top Dog.  

So just what is the DOE Loan Guarantee Program? Here's a quick summary:

The United States DOE Loan Guarantee Program has disbursed $30.7 billion and claims to have created or saved 62,350 jobs. The loan program has three categories:

• Section 1703 of Title XVII of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 authorizes the DOE to support innovative clean energy technologies that are typically unable to obtain conventional private financing due to high technology risks.
• Section 1705 is a temporary program designed to address the current economic conditions of the nation. It authorizes loan guarantees for certain renewable energy systems, electric power transmission systems and leading edge biofuels projects that commence construction no later than September 30, 2011.
• The Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing (ATVM) Loan Program consists of direct loans to support the development of advanced technology vehicles and associated components in the U.S. 

Here's a list of approved DOE Loan Guarantee Program green energy projects under Sections 1703, 1705 and ATVM programs:

Program	Technology	Amount	Location
1703
AREVA	Nuclear	$2B	ID
Georgia Power	Nuclear Gen	$8.3B	GA
Red River Enviro	Energy Eff	$245M	CO
SAGE Electrochrom	Energy Eff	$72M	MN
1705
Abengoa Solar	Solar Gen	$1.4B	CO
Abound Solar	Solar Mfg	$400M	CO
AES Corporation	Storage	$17M	VA
Agua Caliente	Solar Gen	$967M	AZ
Beacon Power	Storage	$43M	MA
BrightSource Energy	Solar Gen	$1.6M	CA
Caithness Shprds Flat	Wind Gen	$1.3M	NY
Cogentrix of Alamosa	Solar Gen	$90.6M	CO
Diamond Green Diesel	Adv Biofuels	$241M	TX
Kahuku Wind Power	Wind Gen	$117M	MA
LS Power Associates	Transmission	$343M	NJ
Nevada Geothermal	Geothermal	$78.8M	BC
Nordic Windpower	Wind Mfg	$16M	CA
Record Hill Wind	Wind Gen	$102M	ME
Solar Trust	Solar Gen	$2.1B	CA
SolarReserve	Solar Gen	$734M	NV
SoloPower	Solar Mfg	$197M	OR
Solyndra Inc.	Solar Mfg	$535M	CA
SunPower (CVSR)	Solar Gen	$1.1B	CA
US Geothermal	Geothermal	$97M	ID

ATVM
Fisker Automotive	$529M	2,000 jobs
Ford Motor Company	$5.9B	33,000 jobs
Nissan North America	$1.44B	1,300 jobs
Tesla Motors	$465M	1,500 jobs
The Vehicle Prod Grp	$50M	900 jobs

The more publicized loan guarantee recipients include Solyndra, BrightSource Energy, Ford,Fisker, and Tesla. (See the more complete list of loan recipients at the end of this article.)

Courtesy of an article dated June 30, 2011 appearing in GreenTechSolar and an article dated June 2, 2011 appear in GreenTechMedia