Last week, we reported on Beacon Power and Nordic Windpower scoring financing — a combined $59 million — in the form of loan guarantees from the Department of Energy. It turns out that accessing government funding is a long and expensive process.
Bloomberg News reports that the loan process took Tyngsboro, Mass.-based Beacon Power well over three years, filling out 96 forms and spending $1 million to secure the government funding. That’s a steep cost, considering the company only makes about $68,000 a year. At The Business Insider Jay Yarow notes that photovoltaic maker Solyndra, which recently secured $535 million in loan guarantees, spent nearly $10 million over three years dealing with the DOE.
As part of President Obama’s plan to double clean power generation and create more than 5 million “green collar” jobs, Energy Secretary Steven Chu has vowed to speed up the loan’s disbursement process. Earlier this year, DOE expanded the loan guarantees to $100 billion, from $38.5 billion.
Beacon Power makes energy-storing flywheels and plans to use the government monies to support the construction of a $69 million flywheel energy storage plant in Stephentown, N.Y. Nordic Windpower, a developer of low cost two-blade turbines, plans to use the $16 million in loan guarantees to expand a wind turbine assembly factory it is developing in Pocatello, Idaho.
Nordic Windpower
Nordic WindPower
