DOE Hires Venture Capitalist to Oversee Key Cleantech Funding Program
Back in March, as the first draft of the Obama administration’s massive green energy investment program began to emerge, we asked if the Department of the Treasury was poised to become cleantech’s new venture capital fund (The Treasury: clean energy’s new VC).
It turns out that we were wrong. Treasury only administers the Obama administration’s green energy funds. The Department of Energy is where the power is, since it actually decides who gets the money. For confirmation of DOE’s growing power, look no further than this press release announcing the appointment of Jonathan Silver, a Washington-based venture capitalist, as the executive director of the DOE’s loan program office. DOE (not Treasury) is clean energy’s new VC. The appointment is yet another indication of the agency’s transformation as one of Washington’s leading funding sources.
In this role, Silver will decide what clean energy and automobile companies get money. Besides the energy loan guarantees, Silver is also in charge of the Department’s Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing (ATVM) program. Read More »
Beacon Power and Nordic Windpower have scored financing in the form of loan guarantees from the Department of Energy. They are the second and third companies to land the coveted financing since Energy Secretary Steven Chu relaunched the program, vowing to speed up the review of loan applications.
