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Obama unveils $4bn project to form clean-energy investment clearinghouse

Obama commits $4bn to form clean-energy investment clearinghouse, Guardian, Brandon Keim 16 June 15  US energy secretary announces new office of technology transitions to help facilitate financing by connecting would-be investors with clean-energy firms With $4bn and a new government office, the White House has unveiled its latest clean energy initiative and cast a subtle new role for the federal government: not only is it a funder of new research, of the latest solar converter or biofuel source, but it is also a market builder.

“One of the real challenges is the gap in financing clean energy,” said Ernest Moniz, US secretary of energy, at a press conference on Monday. “There is a continuing need for new capital investment.”

The new initiative follows on a White House pledge in February to organize mission-driven renewable energy investors, concentrating their impacts and providing information to would-be investors daunted by an unfamiliar clean-energy landscape.

At the press conference on Monday, Moniz and senior advisor Brian Deese fleshed out the details: $4bn in commitments from pension funds, family foundations and other so-called impact investors, and a newly unveiled office of technology transitions that will serve as an all-purpose informational resource for clean-energy investment…….

The initiative represents the latest stage in the Obama administration’s clean-energy policies. In some quarters, these are still synonymous with Solyndra, the California-based solar cell manufacturer that went bankrupt after receiving $535m from the US department of energy.

Yet that reputation is mostly unfair – and not just because the loan program responsible for the Solyndra deal is expected to turn a $5bn profit. The US now leads the world in wind energy production; the price of solar energy has plummeted, and adoption jumped…..http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jun/16/obama-administration-clean-energy-investment-initiative

June 17, 2015 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | renewable, USA