DOE Guarantees Loan for Solyndra
The Obama administration on Friday used the California site of a planned solar-panel factory to complete the first-ever loan guarantee for a renewable-energy project, a $535 million deal that will allow Solyndra Inc. to create hundreds of jobs.
The announcement, outlined by Vice President Joe Biden and Energy Secretary Steven Chu in a region battered by an auto-factory shutdown, comes as Obama administration officials are hoping to show that investments in clean energy projects can help reverse almost two years of job losses.
In March, Solyndra became the first company awarded a loan guarantee under a 2005 program intended to spur renewable energy projects. But the company for months had been unable to lock in the loan because of problems raising the necessary private funds required by the Energy Department to close the deal.
Fortunately for Solyndra, its venture backers stepped up, investing $198 million in equity in a round led by shareholder Argonaut Private Equity, an investment vehicle for Oklahoma billionaire George Kaiser. Other investors in the company include CMEA Ventures, Madrone Capital Partners, which manages capital of the Rob Walton family, Rockport Capital and Virgin Green Fund, which was launched with backing of the Virgin Group.
In remarks beamed via satellite to a groundbreaking ceremony in Fremont, Calif., Biden said: “These are the jobs of the future, these are the green jobs, these are the jobs that won’t be exported.
Fremont was hit hard earlier this year, when Toyota said it would close a factory that it had run as part of a joint venture with General Motors Corp. General Motors had earlier pulled out of the collaboration as part of its bankruptcy reorganization. With jobs scare, California’s jobless rate has jumped to 11.9%, among the highest in the nation.
Solyndra has said that it aims to hire 3,000 employees to build the new factory. The company will ultimately hire 1,000 workers to run the operations. Solyndra, whose panels are designed for rooftops, has a backlog of more than $2 billion worth of orders, with customers mostly in Europe.
“We’ve gotten a significant amount of other business that we’ve not announced,” said Kelly Truman, a marketing vice president at Solyndra. “For every country that slows down, a new one is coming up.”
The Rest @ Wall Street Journal
Vice President Joe Biden recently announced the Department of Energy has finalized a $535 million loan guarantee for Solyndra, Inc., which manufactures innovative cylindrical solar photovoltaic panels that provide clean, renewable energy. The funding will finance construction of the first phase of the company's new manufacturing facility. Annual production of solar panels from the first phase is expected to provide energy equivalent to powering 24,000 homes a year or over half a million homes over the project's lifetime. Solyndra estimates the new plant will initially create 3,000 construction jobs, and lead to as many as 1,000 jobs once the facility opens. Hundreds more will install Solyndra's solar panels on rooftops around the country.
Solyndra is the first recipient of a loan guarantee under the Recovery Act and Title XVII of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. In addition, the loan guarantee issued to Solyndra is the first issued by DOE since the 1980s.
Over its lifetime, the first phase of the facility could reportedly manufacture up to 7 gigawatts of solar panels, which can generate electricity equivalent to 3 or 4 coal fired power plants. This plant will produce about as many new solar panels as the US produced in 2005.
The project will introduce into large-scale commercial operation a new and highly innovative process for manufacturing a breakthrough design for photovoltaic panels. Solyndra's panels will be primarily used in the fast-growing market for large, flat rooftops.
The past several months have been eventful for the company. In late December, Solyndra closed the second largest U.S. cleantech financing of 2008 with a Series E funding round of $219.2 million. This was followed in mid-2009 by the signing of three large European sales contracts, each totaling well over $100 million (5/8, 5/26, 7/28).
The Rest @ Clean Edge
The announcement, outlined by Vice President Joe Biden and Energy Secretary Steven Chu in a region battered by an auto-factory shutdown, comes as Obama administration officials are hoping to show that investments in clean energy projects can help reverse almost two years of job losses.
In March, Solyndra became the first company awarded a loan guarantee under a 2005 program intended to spur renewable energy projects. But the company for months had been unable to lock in the loan because of problems raising the necessary private funds required by the Energy Department to close the deal.
Fortunately for Solyndra, its venture backers stepped up, investing $198 million in equity in a round led by shareholder Argonaut Private Equity, an investment vehicle for Oklahoma billionaire George Kaiser. Other investors in the company include CMEA Ventures, Madrone Capital Partners, which manages capital of the Rob Walton family, Rockport Capital and Virgin Green Fund, which was launched with backing of the Virgin Group.
In remarks beamed via satellite to a groundbreaking ceremony in Fremont, Calif., Biden said: “These are the jobs of the future, these are the green jobs, these are the jobs that won’t be exported.
Fremont was hit hard earlier this year, when Toyota said it would close a factory that it had run as part of a joint venture with General Motors Corp. General Motors had earlier pulled out of the collaboration as part of its bankruptcy reorganization. With jobs scare, California’s jobless rate has jumped to 11.9%, among the highest in the nation.
Solyndra has said that it aims to hire 3,000 employees to build the new factory. The company will ultimately hire 1,000 workers to run the operations. Solyndra, whose panels are designed for rooftops, has a backlog of more than $2 billion worth of orders, with customers mostly in Europe.
“We’ve gotten a significant amount of other business that we’ve not announced,” said Kelly Truman, a marketing vice president at Solyndra. “For every country that slows down, a new one is coming up.”
The Rest @ Wall Street Journal
Vice President Joe Biden recently announced the Department of Energy has finalized a $535 million loan guarantee for Solyndra, Inc., which manufactures innovative cylindrical solar photovoltaic panels that provide clean, renewable energy. The funding will finance construction of the first phase of the company's new manufacturing facility. Annual production of solar panels from the first phase is expected to provide energy equivalent to powering 24,000 homes a year or over half a million homes over the project's lifetime. Solyndra estimates the new plant will initially create 3,000 construction jobs, and lead to as many as 1,000 jobs once the facility opens. Hundreds more will install Solyndra's solar panels on rooftops around the country.
Solyndra is the first recipient of a loan guarantee under the Recovery Act and Title XVII of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. In addition, the loan guarantee issued to Solyndra is the first issued by DOE since the 1980s.
Over its lifetime, the first phase of the facility could reportedly manufacture up to 7 gigawatts of solar panels, which can generate electricity equivalent to 3 or 4 coal fired power plants. This plant will produce about as many new solar panels as the US produced in 2005.
The project will introduce into large-scale commercial operation a new and highly innovative process for manufacturing a breakthrough design for photovoltaic panels. Solyndra's panels will be primarily used in the fast-growing market for large, flat rooftops.
The past several months have been eventful for the company. In late December, Solyndra closed the second largest U.S. cleantech financing of 2008 with a Series E funding round of $219.2 million. This was followed in mid-2009 by the signing of three large European sales contracts, each totaling well over $100 million (5/8, 5/26, 7/28).
The Rest @ Clean Edge
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