The LPO announced it closed a loan guarantee of up to $1.66 billion for Plug Power, a manufacturer of fuel cells and hydrogen electrolyzers. The guarantee is meant to help the company attract financing to build up to six facilities that will produce hydrogen with low or zero carbon emissions using its electrolyzers.
Commercial solar firm Sunwealth also closed a $289.7 million loan guarantee on Thursday to help finance the buildout of commercial solar and storage systems that will form the basis of new virtual power plants in 27 states.
PosiGen, a New Orleans–based rooftop-solar company, last month (December 2024) secured an additional $200 million in funding from Brookfield Asset Management. PosiGen caters to lower-income homeowners who are often overlooked by the big residential solar players.
Google X spinout Dandelion Energy and major U.S. homebuilder Lennar unveiled a partnership that aims to prove that proposition. The companies have pledged to build ground-source geothermal into more than 1,500 new homes in Colorado over the next two years, starting with Lennar’s Ken-Caryl Ranch development in Littleton, Colorado.
The Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office (LPO) announced the completion of its agreement to provide electric-vehicle manufacturer Rivian a loan guarantee of up to $6.57 billion. That federal backing is aimed at enabling Rivian to secure lower-cost debt financing for a second EV factory in Georgia, a $5 billion project that was delayed in March in response to continual operating losses and softness in the EV market.
The case study outlines a collaboration between Solar United Neighbors (SUN) and One Roof Community Housing to provide low-income homeowners with solar energy systems using the "Direct Pay" provision of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The program allows nonprofits to receive a federal tax credit refund, enabling them to install solar panels at no upfront cost to homeowners. Homeowners benefit from lower utility bills, and after five years, they will own the system with minimal maintenance responsibilities. The initiative aims to address financing challenges for low-income households while reducing carbon emissions and promoting energy equity.
Senior Vice President of Global Marketing Jenifer Yokley noted that Blink is a vertically integrated, global provider of EV chargers. The SemaConnect acquisition firmly established Blink in the Level 2 (L2) charger market and brought the manufacturer into compliance with the Build America, Buy America requirements. SemaConnect is one of the 13 acquisitions Blink has made in the past two years, marking a period of rapid growth for the company. This growth was capped off by Blink’s recent announcement that they are moving their headquarters to Bowie, just down the road from their current manufacturing facility.
Ultium was announced as an equally owned joint venture between GM and LGES, leveraging GM’s manufacturing expertise and LGES’s battery-cell technology. This facility now employs nearly 2,200 hourly and salaried workers, more than what was operating in Lordstown when the facility closed. Ultium has announced $2.6 billion in investment in the facility. In 2023, the facility had the nation’s second highest operational battery cell manufacturing capacity, after Panasonic in Nevada.
Ascend Elements has committed $1 billion in Hopkinsville, Kentucky to develop Apex 1, a commercial-scale battery recycling and manufacturing facility for precursor cathode active materials (pCAM). This facility is a first for the United States and is part of a broader effort to onshore the battery supply chain. At present, pCAM is largely produced in China. Nearly a third of the total facility investment is being provided by a Department of Energy grant, funded by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
UPROSE has been working to develop the Sunset Park Solar project since 2017, as part of its broader vision for curbing excessive air pollution and creating climate resiliency in the neighborhood. After years of forming partnerships, and repairs to the building’s rooftop, the solar array is finally expected to begin producing power by the end of this year.