Stephen Bolotin is a Public Affairs Advisor in the Washington D.C. office
The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Loan Programs Office (LPO) has recently announced two major updates to their active loan guarantee solicitations:
- New rounds of Part I and Part II application submission deadlines well into 2016, and
- Additional funding authority of $1 billion distributed evenly between the Advanced Fossil Energy Projects Solicitation (DE-SOL-0006303) and the Renewable Energy And Energy Efficiency (REEE) Projects Solicitation (DE-SOL-0007154).
New Loan Guarantee Funding Authority
President Obama originally announced the $1 billion in additional loan guarantee authority in August. The 45-day congressional notification period required for allocating this money has officially concluded, and the additional loan guarantee authority is now available per supplemental guidance posted to the LPO's website:
- The Supplemental Guidance for the Advanced Fossil Energy Projects Solicitation adds $500 million, increasing total available loan authority to $8.5 billion.
- The Supplemental Guidance for the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Projects Solicitation adds $500 million, increasing total available loan authority to approximately $4.5 billion.
As explained in earlier blog posts, the Loan Program specifically allocates a portion of the REEE Solicitation to cover credit subsidy costs , whereas the Advanced Fossil Solicitation does not.
Additional Part I and Part II Application Rounds
The DOE LPO announcement adds additional application deadlines for Part I and Part II applications well into 2016. The new submission deadlines supersede all previously announced deadlines and are provided below. Additional rounds may be announced next year if sufficient loan guarantee authority remains or new authority is appropriated.
Upcoming Part I Application Deadlines:
- November 18, 2015
- December 30, 2015
- January 13, 2016
- March 16, 2016
- May 18, 2016
- July 13, 2016
Upcoming Part II Application Deadlines:
- December 16, 2015
- February 17, 2016
- April 13, 2016
- June 15, 2016
- August 17, 2016
- October 19, 2016
H&K Insights
H&K has anticipated this extension given the number of projects in the pipeline. The extension of submission deadlines and additional funding both underscore that DOE's Loan Guarantee Programs continue to streamline, expand, and gain momentum. Most notably, the DOE LPO is continuing to pursue ways to decrease programmatic costs for applicants and create programmatic stability now through the upcoming change in administration. Accordingly, DOE Loan Guarantees remain attractive for financing commercially ready, first-of-a-kind large-scale and distributed energy projects.
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