Loan Program Office Can Play a Significant Role in Advancing Net Zero Goals

In years past, the US Department of Energy (DOE)  Loan Program Office (LPO) financed some of the first utility-scale PV solar and large wind projects, demonstrating their bankability to the commercial lending sector. The office is now looking to replicate those kinds of successes in a variety of other sectors such as clean hydrogen, carbon capture, biofuels, long-duration storage, small modular and micro nuclear reactors, and the electric vehicle market.

In a two-part interview with the LPO for Energy Central, Brett Feldman, research director at Guidehouse Insights, asks how the Title 17 Innovative Energy Loan Guarantee Program and the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program (ATVM) can help accelerate commercial deployment of clean energy and demonstrate the bankability of those technologies to the private sector.

The interview explains how it has become easier for projects to apply for funding by creating a new Outreach and Business Development Division staffed with professionals from across a wide variety of energy and transportation sectors. For coal communities, LPO can support projects that retrofit coal assets or integrate renewable energy if they meet all the necessary criteria.

In the interview, Feldman also discusses how both the Renewable Energy Projects and Efficient Energy Projects (REEE) and Advanced Fossil Energy Projects initiatives support green hydrogen technology as a critical fuel to help achieve energy goals.