The Biden administration offered a $1.76 billion conditional loan guarantee for GEM A-CAES, a wholly owned subsidiary of Canadian startup Hydrostor. That federal backing will help secure financing for the Willow Rock advanced compressed-air energy storage (A-CAES) project planned near the town of Rosamond in California’s eastern Kern County.
The manufacturer Calumet said the funding process is back on track for its subsidiary, Montana Renewables, which plans to expand its biofuels facility in Great Falls, Montana. The company currently makes fuel for planes and trucks using seed oils and discarded animal fats. With the expansion, the refinery will be able to produce about 315 million gallons per year, most of which will be sustainable aviation fuel, or SAF.
Amogy, which was founded by three Massachusetts Institute of Technology PhD graduates, aims to help decarbonize sectors like maritime shipping that are viewed as more difficult to shift away from fossil fuels. To do that, it created a chemical reactor that “cracks” ammonia — a compound often used in products like fertilizer — into nitrogen and hydrogen. The hydrogen then goes through a fuel cell that can power vessels, trucks, and other machinery, while the nitrogen is released into the air.
Already, the startup has worked with ready-mix suppliers to provide its cement for projects with Caltrans, the City of Santa Cruz, and the City of Berkeley, alongside various California-based contracting companies. Last year, Fortera received $85 million in series C funding to expand operations beyond its plant in Redding, California. Since then, it has begun engineering an expanded plant at an undisclosed location in the Western U.S., with the capacity to produce 400,000 tons of cement per year. (The Redding plant produces 15,000 tons per year.)
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.
LPO on Friday afternoon finalized a $996 million loan guarantee for Ioneer’s Rhyolite Ridge Lithium-Boron Project, a massive lithium and boron mining and processing facility in Nevada. That final commitment “upsized” the initial $700 million conditional commitment offered to Ioneer by DOE in early 2023.
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 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.