Report: Early administration support of solar farms lead to explosive growth
New data published on Friday by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Loan Programs Office (LPO) illustrates the explosive growth in large-scale solar farm development that resulted from the Obama administration’s early support for solar photovoltaic (PV) projects.
LPO’s loan guarantees totaled $4.6 billion in 2011 – a key contribution that helped developers move forward with the nation’s first utility-scale PV projects.
“When the Obama administration began, there were zero large-scale solar PV projects in the United States,” Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz said. “Our Loan Programs Office committed funding for the first five, and today we can say 45 more have been built with private financing, opening a clean energy market that did not exist before.”
Loan guarantees provided by the LPO to the first five utility-scale projects in the U.S. helped to demonstrate the feasibility of the technology to the market, triggering a dramatic expansion of the industry in subsequent years.
“Mesquite Solar 1 and 3 exemplify how the Energy Department provides crucial early financing and technical support to demonstrate cutting-edge projects at commercial scale to support new markets, work with lenders, and provide confidence to investors so the Department can then step aside to let industry take over,” Moniz said. “We’re excited for the ongoing opportunity to help more innovative technologies overcome hurdles to commercial maturity.”
