US green loan stimulus package starts to roll

The US Department of Energy (DoE) has awarded the first green loan guarantee to be issued under President Barack Obama's stimulus package, backing a $535m loan for solar company Solyndra to construct a second manufacturing plant.

Funded as part of the stimulus package, the guarantee will help finance roughly three quarters of a construction project that will employ 3,000 people, according to Solyndra. Once finished, the plant will employ a further 1,000 people full-time.

The company added that the new plant will be able to manufacture 500MW of solar panels per year, adding to the 110MW-a-year capacity at its existing facility in Fremont, California.

Four-year-old Solyndra, which came out of stealth mode last year and has been shipping panels since last July, uses tubes instead of flat panels as the backplane for copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) material. The tubes are arranged into grids that rest on a flat surface and pick up the sun throughout the day without having to be tilted.

The company has been expanding aggressively of late, reportedly landing $219m in venture funding in January, and launching a European subsidiary in the same month.

The guarantee, granted under title XVII of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, will be finalised as long as Solyndra can meet preset equity commitments.

The award is the first to be awarded under a four-year-old loan guarantee programme that had been blighted by administrative delays under the previous administration.

Newly-appointed energy secretary, Steven Chu, has said that under president Obama's stimulus package the distribution of the loan guarantees is now a priority for the department and a wave of new awards are expected over the next few months.

In other news, computer chip giant National Semiconductor has stepped up its push into the solar market with the acquisition of privately-owned Act Solar Inc, which sells power optimisation products designed to increase the effectiveness of solar arrays.