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Yesterday, President Obama announced that the U.S. Departments of Agriculture (“USDA”), Energy (“DOE”), and Navy (“USN”, and together with the USDA and DOE, the “Agencies”) will invest up to $510 million over the course of the next three years to support advanced drop-in aviation and marine biofuels to power military and commercial transportation. This is a…

Puget Sound Clean Cities Coalition has announced that it has roughly $400,000 in unused ARRA grant funds available for alternative fuel vehicle and infrastructure projects. 

Examples of eligible vehicles include:

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Earlier this year, the Oregon Department of Energy (“ODOE”) allocated $10 million in tax credits for renewable energy projects with costs of less than $500,000 (“Tier One Projects”). On Wednesday, October 13, ODOE announced that it will no longer accept applications for Tier One Projects because as of October 11 ODOE had received applications for…

The Treasury Department recently issued a series of FAQs in an effort to clarify when projects will be treated as having “begun construction” for purposes of the section 1603 grant. As you may be aware, a project that otherwise qualifies for the grant but is not placed in service before the end of 2010 may still be eligible for the grant if construction on the project is begun in 2009 or 2010 and the project is eventually placed in service before the applicable “credit termination date.” The new FAQs address a number of the unanswered questions. However, the framework adopted by the Treasury Guidance and the new FAQs is complex, and there appears to be a considerable amount of confusion among developers about how the “beginning construction” requirement can be met. Therefore, we thought it important to issue this alert.
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Continue Reading Understanding “Beginning Construction” Under Section 1603

On August 12, 2010, Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced a new loan guarantee solicitation for renewable energy manufacturing projects.  The Commercial Technology Renewable Energy Manufacturing Projects solicitation (the "Solicitation") is supported by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (the "Recovery Act") through Section 1705 of the Loan Guarantee Program and is focused primarily on providing new green energy jobs and the deployment of renewable energy technologies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The solicitation specifically identified "Eligible Projects" to include renewable energy manufacturing projects or facilities located in the United States that:

  • Manufactures Commercial Technology products that support the generation of electricity or thermal energy from renewable resources;
  • Has Project Costs greater than seventy-five million dollars ($75,000,000);
  • Is able to obtain a credit rating equivalent of "BB" or better from Standard & Poor’s or Fitch, or "Ba2" or better from Moody’s, as evaluated without the benefit of any DOE guarantee or any other credit support;
  • Will create or retain jobs in the United States; and
  • Otherwise meets all applicable requirements of Title XVII, including Section 1705, the Solicitation, including all attachments and all applicable requirements of the Recovery Act.

The Solicitation also provided, for illustrative purposes, examples of the types of Eligible Projects that may qualify, which include the following:

  • wind energy component or systems manufacturing facilities;
  • solar photovoltaic (PV) component or system manufacturing facilities;
  • concentrated solar power component or system manufacturing facilities;
  • hydropower component or system manufacturing facilities;
  • geothermal component or system manufacturing facilities;
  • other geothermal power cycle component or system manufacturing facilities; or
  • ocean wave, tidal, and river current (e.g. hydrokinetic) component or system manufacturing facilities

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Continue Reading Clean Energy Jobs Focus of New Manufacturing Solicitation Issued by the DOE

From our colleagues Jere Webb and Jason Davis:

On August 6, 2010, the Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (“EERE”), through delegated authority by the Department of Energy, issued a nationwide limited public interest waiver under Section 1605 (the “Buy American Provisions”) of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (the…

There has been a wave of good and bad news this past week regarding the DOE’s Loan Guarantee Program.  On the positive side, Secretary Chu announced on Friday that the Department would be adding an additional compliance period for the Innovative Solicitation.  The current deadline for the Part I application under the program is August 24th.  Secretary…

Saturday was a great day for solar energy: the DOE offered two conditional loan guarantee commitments:

  • $1.45 billion loan guarantee to Abengoa Solar Inc. for the construction and start-up of a concentrating solar power (CSP) generating facility in Solana, Arizona and a
  • $400 million loan guarantee to Abound Solar Manufacturing for the assembly of state-of-the-art

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DOE issued three Funding Opportunity Announcements (FOAs) on March 2 that offer $100 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding for the third round of its Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) program. The FOAs were announced at the first ARPA-E summit in Washington, D.C., and focus on innovations in three areas of technology: …