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The US Department of Energy’s (DOE) chief of economic stimulus spending has revealed that the agency is spending about $1bn per month under the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, a pace that will largely continue until the funds are exhausted.
DOE received nearly $33bn under the Recovery Act for grants and contracts to support clean energy and energy efficiency projects, virtually all of which has been obligated, Matt Rogers, DOE’s senior adviser for stimulus activities, said at the recent Platts Energy Podium event in the US that, the department has spent $7.3bn.
“The Department of Energy will continue to outlay $800m to $1bn every month for the next 18 months before this portfolio of projects really begins to ramp down,” Rogers said.
Rogers also said DOE’s loan guarantee programme, which has about $66bn in authority, mostly non-stimulus spending, will soon be issuing awards at a pace of three or four per month.
“The scheme, mandated by Congress in 2005, had not issued a single loan guarantee until the Obama administration came to office in early 2009. Since then, the department has selected 14 projects for loan guarantees,” Platts reported.
The loan guarantee office is now working with batches of applications to speed up the process. Specifically, Rogers said, there are several large wind, solar and biofuels projects moving through the system.”