Obama announces billion dollar investments in clean energy

President Obama announced his administration will be putting more than a billion dollars into numerous Department of Energy (DOE) initiatives, part of the administration’s Clean Power Plan.

The investment will go to programs intended to drive energy sector innovation while accelerating the United States’ clean energy economy.

The DOE’s Loan Programs Office (LPO) will be putting out up to a billion dollars in loan guarantees to support commercial-scale distributed energy projects like rooftop solar panels and smart grid technology.

The Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E) will be awarding $24 million in funding to build 11 high-performance solar power projects in the U.S. that would make it possible to cut consumer energy costs and improve the performance of the nation’s solar power systems.

Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz said that put together, the initiatives and investments will work to spur innovation, ensure energy grid reliability and advance America’s low-carbon energy future.

“The Clean Power Plan is a tremendous opportunity for American businesses to be global leaders in solar and distributed energy technologies,” Moniz said. “This will help shepherd in a new era of clean energy jobs and a low-carbon economy that will deliver affordable and reliable power to America’s homes and businesses.”