2022 Year In Review

Happy new year! As we kick off this new year, I’m excited to launch my monthly LinkedIn newsletter Accelerating Climate Wealth. Here, I’ll expand past “what” and dive deeper into how the Loan Programs Office will deploy funds at scale to help America do big things and win the clean energy race.

In 2022, the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) altered the scope and scale of what is possible in the next decade. This historic legislation lays the groundwork for a new American industrial strategy that will create jobs and wealth while addressing environmental justice and equity priorities and strengthening our energy security and supply chains. The IRA provided $100 billion of new loan authority into our existing loan programs and created a large new one called the Energy Infrastructure Reinvestment Program (1706).

DOE announces first loan guarantee for hydrogen project in Utah

In June 2022, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced it closed on a $504.4 million loan guarantee to the Advanced Clean Energy Storage project in Utah — marking the first loan guarantee for a new clean energy technology project from DOE’s Loan Programs Office (LPO) since 2014. The loan guarantee will help finance construction of the largest clean #hydrogen storage facility in the world, capable of providing long-term low-cost, seasonal energy #storage, furthering grid stability. The project is expected to create up to 400 construction and 25 operations jobs, advancing President Biden’s #climate and clean energy deployment goal of net zero emissions by 2050.?

DOE backs US battery materials production with $107M loan

In July 2022, the Department of Energy issued a $102.1 million loan to Syrah Technologies LLC for the expansion of its Syrah Vidalia Facility—a processing facility that produces graphite-based active anode material (AAM), a critical material used in lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles (EVs) and other clean energy technologies. Located in Vidalia, LA, the facility would be the first of its kind in the country, bringing a key industry to the United States to support the growing EV sector.

U.S. finalizes $2.5 billion loan to GM, LG battery joint venture

In December 2022, the Department of Energy announced the closing of a $2.5 billion loan to Ultium Cells LLC to help finance the construction of new lithium-ion battery cell manufacturing facilities in Ohio, Tennessee, and Michigan and reduce the nation’s reliance on other countries to meet increased demand for #electricvehicle technologies.

As of the end of 2022, we have received 125 applications and are averaging over one new application per week from sectors including advanced vehicles and components, advanced #nuclear, #biofuels, #carbonmanagement, #transmission, #virtualpowerplants, #criticalminerals, #wind, and more.?

Today, we are entering a new phase of this fight. Princeton’s Net Zero America estimates the United States will need $300 billion more than the baseline deployed annually through 2050 to achieve our climate goals. This incremental investment will ultimately stand at $10 trillion total. Reaching these amounts is not impossible – but it’s going to take towns and cities across the country rallying together to build access to modern energy and investments from the private sector toward mass deployment.

This year, we will be ramping up deployment of funds at an even higher volume with a goal of onshoring and reshoring America’s energy supply chains and strengthening energy independence.

For me personally, after decades of work in this space, I have never been more optimistic about America’s potential to do big things.?