In Vermont, the City of Montpelier will install a wood chip-fueled, district energy system that will provide heat to 176 downtown buildings, including the state capitol, the city hall, and a number of schools. The CHP system will also deliver 1.8 million kWh of power to the grid each year.
And in Wisconsin, the Forest County Potawatomi Tribe will provide heating, cooling, and electricity for the tribe's governmental buildings, using a combination of a 1.25 MW, biomass-fueled CHP facility; an anaerobic digester to convert manure to biogas, paired with a 150 kW generator; three 100 kW wind turbines; and three 2.88 kW solar power systems. See the DOE press release.
DOE Invests $12M for Early-Stage Solar Technologies
DOE's National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) will invest $12 million in four companies to support development of early-stage solar technologies and help them advance to full commercial scale.
$10 million comes from the ARRA, which is providing a total of $117 million to develop and deploy solar technologies. The goal is to further expand the clean energy economy and make solar energy more cost-competitive with conventional forms of electricity.
Companies awarded under DOE's Photovoltaic Incubator Program will work with NREL to transition prototype and pre-commercial PV technologies into pilot-scale and full-scale manufacturing.
Partnership projects include: Alta Devices, Inc., which is developing an innovative high-efficiency, low-cost solar module, with market entry expected in 2011; Solar Junction Corp., which is developing a manufacturing process to produce a very high efficiency, multi-junction solar cell for concentrating PV (CPV) systems; Tetra Sun, which is exploring back-surface passivation for high efficiency crystalline silicon solar cells; and Semprius, Inc., which is studying a massively parallel, microcell-based CPV receiver. See the DOE press release.
DOE Closes $465 Million Loan to Tesla Motors
On January 21, DOE announced the closing of its $465 million loan with Tesla Motors for the construction of two manufacturing facilities - one in southern California for the Model S electric sedan and one in Palo Alto, California, for electric powertrains.
The Palo Alto facility will assemble electric vehicle (EV) battery packs, electric motors, and related EV control equipment, both for Tesla's vehicles and for sale to other automobile manufacturers.
Tesla's planned Model S EV has a base price of $49,900 and is being designed to offer a variety of range options depending on the battery pack used, from 160-300 miles on a single charge. Volume production of the Model S will begin in 2012, targeting production capacity of 20,000 vehicles per year by the end of 2013. According to Tesla, the Model S project and powertrain manufacturing facility are expected to create over 1,600 jobs.
The Tesla announcement marks the second loan agreement signed by DOE with an advanced technology vehicle manufacturer, following a $5.9 billion agreement with Ford Motor in September 2009. DOE has also signed conditional commitments with Nissan North America and Fisker Automotive. Tenneco Inc. became the first advanced technology component manufacturer to obtain a conditional commitment from DOE in October of last year. Nissan plans to build electric cars and battery packs at the company's Smyrna, Tennessee, manufacturing complex, while Fisker recently announced plans to build plug-in hybrids by reopening a shuttered GM plant in Wilmington, Delaware.
