When Green Investments Turn Red

The Department of Energy (DOE) has provided almost $35 billion in loans, loan guarantees and conditional commitments to renewable-energy companies. About 35 percent of that is for solar-generating projects, which benefit from falling panel prices, compared with less than 4 percent for solar manufacturers. What has happened to these "investments"?

According to Marita Noon, Executive Director of Energy Makes America Great, green-energy investments receiving funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (known as the stimulus) have a dubious pedigree of favoritism. There is not enough known data available to make a definitive conclusion, but there at least 15 projects where the entities in question have gone bankrupt.

The report finds a political connection with recipient firms at least 60% of the time. The report starts with Solyndra—because it is the most widely known. It includes Abound Solar and Beacon Power, which like Solyndra, has received a fair amount of press. The remaining projects are presented here in alphabetical order. The report does not include A123 Systems, a manufacturer of lithium ion batteries used for electric vehicles and grid storage, which recently filed for bankruptcy protection and reached an agreement to sell two U.S. manufacturing plants to competitor Johnson Controls. The company received $129 million in federal government grants to build its facilities.

Click here to see the full list compiled by Marita Noon →

Related Links

The Foundry: Another Stimulus Backed ‘Green Energy’ Company Goes Bankrupt

Media Matters: The Wall Street Journal‘s False Solar Statistic


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