Green Tech

The Department of Energy on Wednesday announced which U.S. companies have been awarded grants to build manufacturing plants for electric vehicle batteries.

The $2.4 billion program, established as part of the stimulus plan, sets aside funds for auto battery manufacturing and related components, such as electric motors. (Click here for a PDF to see the full list and for a map of the awards).

President Obama, appearing in Elkhart, Ind., and Vice President Joe Biden, in Detroit, were scheduled to announce the recipients and specific amounts. Energy Secretary Steven Chu is scheduled to speak Wednesday in Charlotte, N.C., and visit a battery supplier.

The grants, which will be matched by $2.4 billion in private investment, will go to battery and component suppliers as well as the big U.S. automakers--General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler--which will receive over $400 million for manufacturing and to test the performance of electric vehicles, such as the Chevy Volt.

In all, there will be 48 funded projects, with many--18 out of the total--located in the traditional auto manufacturing states of Michigan and Indiana.

The grants are meant to jump-start the U.S. industry for auto batteries, which is now dominated by Asian suppliers. The Obama administration has set a goal of putting 1 million plug-in electric vehicles on the road by 2015.

Of the total, $1.5 billion is available for U.S. battery manufacturing and $500 million for related technology, such as electric motors. Another $400 million is dedicated for federal agencies to purchase fleet plug-in electric vehicles and to develop the infrastructure needed for plug-in electric vehicles, such as charging stations and training for technicians in electric vehicles.

The White House said that the companies were chosen in a "highly competitive process" where applications were evaluated by the DOE.

Battery makers
For the individual companies involved, the grants can be a lifeline to bigger things, such as volume production. The credit crisis on Wall Street has made it difficult to secure the significant amount of money needed for constructing new manufacturing facilities, particularly for new battery technology.

The top recipient is Johnson Controls, which will receive $299 million to produce nickel cobalt metal battery cells and packs. A123 Systems will get $249.1 million to go ahead with plans to build a factory in Michigan for its lithium ion battery packs and related components.

Dow Koman is set to receive $161 million for its batteries, and Compact Power, on behalf of Korean company LG Chem, will produce the lithium ion battery cells that will be used with General Motors' Chevy Volt electric car.

Another recipient is EnerDel, which received $118.5 million that it intends to match with the same amount to expand lithium ion battery manufacturing in its home state of Indiana. EnerDel has supply agreements with Fisker Automotive and Think. Saft America will receive $95.5 million to produce lithium ion cells and batteries for industrial, agricultural, and defense vehicles.

EnerDel CEO Charles Gassenheimer said that the grant will allow the company to double the volume at its existing auto battery plant in Indiana. "What this money does is accelerate our business plan tremendously," he said.

The company has also applied for a $480 million loan under the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program, which is expected to be announced in the coming weeks. Without the grant or loan, the company projected revenue of $700 million by 2015, but if it receives both it expects it can get to $2.25 billion.

Having a domestic auto battery supply chain will allow auto battery makers to lower the cost by as much as 40 percent in that time frame, EnerDel projects.

"The U.S. taxpayer can expect the United States, which is playing second seat to Asia and Europe in electric drive trains, (to produce) cheaper, more fuel-efficient cars faster," Gassenheimer said. "We strongly believe that on a total cost of ownership basis, electric cars can be significantly cheaper today than gasoline cars."

Charging stations
Hybrid vehicles now use nickel metal hydride batteries but many new models of electric cars set to come to market over the next two years will use lithium ion batteries, which are already widely used in consumer electronics. Although there are different types, lithium batteries are preferred because they are lighter and allow for higher energy density.

But there were two battery companies--East Penn Manufacturing and Exide Technologies with Axion Power--in the program that received funds to advance lead acid batteries for "micro and mild hybrid applications."

The largest grant for developing a charging infrastructure went to eTec, a subsidiary of Ecotality, and Nissan which will test a network of fast-charging stations in cities in Arizona, California, Oregon, Washington, and Tennessee.

The DOE will invest $99.9 million, which will be matched by participating companies, to test the performance of 5,000 of Nissan's all-electric Leaf sedan with eTec's charging stations, in different climates and use patterns.

The DOE's goal is to have 70 percent of funds spent by the end of September next year and have nearly all the money spent by the following year, Energy Department senior adviser Matt Rogers told reporters on Tuesday, according to Environment & Energy Daily.

A "public-private partnership" is required to speed the transition to new auto technology, said Brian Wynne the president of the Electric Drive Transportation Association industry group. Pumping money into the sector will help auto makers meet demand for electric cars over the next two years and lessen the premium consumers need to pay for the new technology, he said.

"There's the immediate impact of jobs--it's all about green jobs--and we want to invest in a sector that will pull us into a new era. That's what essentially investing in here," said Wynne.

This article was updated at 9 a.m. PDT with more details, and the corrected amount of EnerDel's grant and the number of awards in Michigan and Indiana.

The Department of Energy on Wednesday detailed $30 billion in loan guarantees available to promote renewable energy and grid upgrades.

The DOE is soliciting applications for projects in renewable energy and added electricity transmission. This phase of loan guarantees also makes loans available for "cutting edge" biofuels projects.

The solicitations for applications are the sixth and seventh step in the DOE's loan guarantee program, funded by the stimulus act. Billions of dollars of loans and loan guarantees had been authorized before the stimulus but few had been awarded until earlier this year.

Awards for projects to promote domestic car and auto battery manufacturing--the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program (ATVM) and Advanced Battery Manufacturing grants--are expected to be announced as early as this week.

Ford, Tesla Motors, and Nissan were the first awarded loans from the $25 billion ATVM program in June.

A group of energy industry associations has warned President Obama that bureaucratic delays could sink large-scale projects and derail Obama's goal of doubling renewable-energy supply in the next three years.

In a letter dated Tuesday, seven industry groups urged Obama to intercede so that already-authorized loans are made available quickly. The letter was signed by the heads of the American Wind Energy Association, the Solar Energy Industries Association, the Biomass Power Association, the United States Clean Heat & Power Association, the Nuclear Energy Institute, the Geothermal Energy Association, and the National Hydropower Association. (Click for PDF)

The credit crisis has made financing large-scale renewable-energy projects, such as wind and solar farms, far more difficult than one year ago. The stimulus act passed earlier this year changed the subsidy so renewable-energy companies can finance projects with loans from the U.S. Department of Energy.

Another loan guarantee program, established in 2005, is designed to give young green-technology companies expansion funds. Solar start-up Solyndra in March received a $535 million loan to build a larger factory and many others, including Tesla Motors, have applied for loans.

However, despite the Department of Energy's stated plans to move quickly, the loan money from either program is not yet flowing, the industry associations complained. Creation of the loan guarantee program called for in this year's stimulus plan, officially called the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), is blocked by the Office of Management and Budget, they said.

"Three months have passed since enactment of ARRA, and we have little confidence that ongoing discussions between DOE (Department of Energy) and the Office of Management and Budget over these regulations will produce a satisfactory result in a timely manner," the letter said.

The industry associations said that if the authorized funds are not made available quickly, some projects, such as a large wind farm, will be delayed or canceled.

"Further delay endangers the planned role of the green energy economy in the nation's economic recovery and undermines the effort to meet your Administration's energy policy goals, including the doubling of renewable energy supply in three years," the letter said.

No visibility?
The letter reflects the complaints about loan programs from company executives in industry. The CEO of Schott Solar North America, Gerald Fine, said earlier this month that since the stimulus plan loan guarantee program is not yet operating, projects are on hold while project developers and manufacturers await "clarity."

In a conference call with investors in late April, the CEO of panel maker First Solar, Michael Ahearn, said that the loan guarantee program is "subjective" and not available to the market in general.

"The rules and criteria aren't even developed let alone published and so when companies like us start thinking about how you put project finance in place to facilitate a large project, due late 2010 or beyond, we can't rely on that program. There's no visibility around it. No assurance, we will be entitled to participate," he said.

"I think we speak for a number of companies on these points and would like to deploy big volumes here. We just need a few of these pieces to be in place," Ahearn said.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu established a special board within the DOE in an effort to streamline the loan guarantee process. Chu said last week that the DOE will be asking academics to take a leave of absence to help with loan vetting.

"This is a huge load on the system and we need the best help we can get," Chu said after giving a speech at MIT. "The quality of reviews has to go up. It's very important we get it right."

Some entrepreneurs, meanwhile, have complained that local officials simply aren't aware of the changes to the loan programs. "Obama says, 'OK, we're going to cut through all the red tape.' In the actual environment, it ain't happening," said a person seeking loans for a biofuel project.

Editors' note: This is a guest post. See Paul Bell's bio below.

When President Obama addressed a joint session of Congress in February, he spoke to the need for the United States to become more energy-efficient. To that end, the stimulus bill he recently signed into law provides more than $30 billion for energy efficiency projects, innovative technology loan guarantees, the retrofitting of federal facilities, and the development of the initial framework for a "smart" electrical grid.

These measures put the country on a long-term path toward so-called green-led growth. But how they are implemented is as important as their passage. Moving forward, policymakers must adopt reforms and take advantage of the stimulus funds to make government IT operations more energy-efficient. They also should set policies that encourage and incentivize the private sector to do the same.

To start, they should spotlight the significant stimulus funds aimed at upgrading information technology in federal facilities. Newer, more energy-efficient IT will drive long-term cost savings and environmental sustainability, while boosting government productivity and reducing energy consumption.

The federal government is a major IT user and, as such, a major energy consumer. The most recent Environmental Protection Agency report on federal energy consumption indicates that federal servers and data centers accounted for approximately 6 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity use, for a total electricity cost of about $450 million annually (PDF). And energy use is slated to double by 2011.

The federal government can lead by example by pursuing two interlocking--but equally important--objectives:

First, the Obama administration should challenge federal agencies to freeze IT-related energy consumption at current levels while boosting computing output. This will be faster and potentially more effective than legislation.

And it's not as difficult as it sounds, but depends on successful implementation of three measures: New federal data centers must use the best available energy-efficient IT; existing federal data centers must be converted to "green" data centers within three years; and federal data centers must be connected to intelligent utility networks or smart grids, where possible. This will reduce energy consumption and drive significant cost savings for consumers, small businesses, large enterprises, and public-sector organizations, while enhancing U.S. competitiveness.

At Dell, we've learned that going green doesn't have to involve building costly new data centers. By applying a green approach to our own data centers, we are on track to save $52 million in related costs by the end of this year, and we've avoided the need to build a new data center altogether. We're able to compute more while consuming less.

The federal government must modernize data centers to improve energy efficiency. Most government--and private-sector--data centers have significant unused capacity due to servers consuming power but not always doing a lot of work. That can change by embracing technologies, such as virtualization, that optimize server productivity.

Virtualization is a technology that allows one server to do the work of many. Using software to create multiple virtual machines inside each physical system, virtualization reduces the number of servers required to run a data center. Combined with other technologies, a data center can do as much as three times more work using the same power and space. This unlocks unused capacity, increases computing power, and avoids the expense associated with overprovisioning and buying additional servers.

Second, government should establish policies that encourage greater IT energy efficiency in the private sector. The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy found that for every extra kilowatt-hour of electricity consumed by information and communications technologies, the U.S. economy increases its overall energy savings by a factor of 10. In essence, efficient IT saves more energy than it uses.

Congress, regulators, and the Obama administration should start with a comprehensive assessment of government servers by class and power use. They also should develop a national strategy for deploying IT that drives energy efficiency. A senior White House representative, perhaps federal CIO Vivek Kundra, should coordinate federal efforts on energy-efficient IT, working with Congress to advance this agenda.

Policymakers also should develop a framework to support private-sector energy efficiency, including:

• Tax credits to invest in projects that reduce energy demand.
• Immediate expensing, or accelerated depreciation, for retrofitting or replacing IT that improves energy efficiency by at least 25 percent. Similar benefits should be considered for investment in broadband or related IT that supports flexible work or virtual-meeting programs.
• Energy efficiency investments for small-business administration loan programs.

In an era of tight budgets, Washington can invest in greater energy efficiency--an investment that will show a strong, timely return. While this is an investment for the long-term, it's imperative that desired efficiencies can be realized immediately.

Technology is the great catalyst for human progress, and now there is a valuable opportunity for government to help the sector realize vast new efficiencies, reduce costs, and simplify IT management.

The Obama administration announced new plans on Thursday to kick-start smart-grid development, including funding details and the start of a standardization process.

During a visit to Jefferson City, Mo., Vice President Joe Biden detailed plans for the U.S. Department of Energy to distribute more than $3.3 billion in stimulus funds for smart-grid technology development grants. Additionally, the Energy Department will hand out $615 million for regional demonstration projects that exhibit smart-grid storage, monitoring and technology viability.

"We need an upgraded electrical grid to take full advantage of the vast renewable resources in this country--to take the wind from the Midwest and the sun from the Southwest and power areas across the country," Biden said in his prepared remarks. "By investing in updating the grid now, we will lower utility bills for American families and businesses, lessen our dependence on foreign oil and create good jobs that will drive our economic recovery."

The $3.375 billion Energy Department grant program will give out grants ranging from $500,000 to $20 million for smart-grid technology deployments. It will also give out grants of $100,000 to $5 million for the deployment of grid monitoring devices.

The $615 million for demonstration projects will specifically fund exhibitions that verify technology viability and examine new business models, give energy storage demonstrations, or exhibitions that demonstrate grid monitoring devices that allow system operators to manipulate electric flows in real time.

Alongside the vice president in Jefferson City, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke announced his plans to chair, with Energy Secretary Steven Chu, a series of meetings in May with private-sector leaders and others involved in smart-grid development to devise industry-wide smart-grid standards. The meeting participants are expected to commit to a timetable for reaching a standards agreement and to abide by the standards devised.

Regulators and private-sector representatives have warned Washington that if common smart-grid standards are not implemented, the government risks wasting taxpayers' money on soon-obsolete technologies that could be incompatible with one another.

"A smart electricity grid will revolutionize the way we use energy, but we need standards in place to ensure that all this new technology is compatible and operating at the highest cybersecurity standards to protect the smart grid from hackers and natural disasters," Locke said in his prepared remarks. "The Recovery Act will fund the development of those standards so the exciting technology can finally take off."

After weeks of supportive words from the president, U.S. green-tech professionals saw something else this week: money starting to flow.

The Department of Energy said last Friday that it expects to provide $535 million in loans to California start-up Solyndra, which has a novel design for rooftop solar arrays. The alternative-energy loan, the first of its kind in four years from the DOE, is a positive sign for the finance-challenged green-tech industry, investors and entrepreneurs said this week.

"I'm happy to see our government supporting advanced research initiatives particularly in regards to energy because the country needs it," said John Walecka, a founding partner at RedPoint Ventures, one of the investors in Solyndra.

"The government doesn't have any intention of running businesses. But from what I can see, they are sophisticated and thoughtful in how to structure deals--that's very clear," he said.

Because of the troubled credit markets, the DOE program has become the "provider of last resort" to companies that need financing to expand and build manufacturing plants, said venture capital investor Paul Holland of Foundation Capital, who was in Washington this week at a meeting of energy professionals at the White House.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu has revamped the DOE's loan-vetting process to break the logjam of these loans, which many high-profile green-tech start-ups such as Tesla Motors and battery maker A123 Systems have applied for. Meanwhile, the government's economic stimulus plan calls for $1.6 billion for research through the national laboratories and for investments to bulk up and modernize the transmission grid to transport solar and wind power.

In anticipation of a big inflow of money, green business people have reported spending a lot of time in Washington, D.C. Everyone--from small start-ups to established wind project developers--is hiring lobbyists to influence policy.

"If you just take wind, every developer in the country will be knocking on the DOE's door and asking to get a piece of the pie," Jim Barry, chief executive of renewable energy project developer NTR said at the Jefferies Global Clean Technology conference in New York earlier this month. "The higher quality projects will rise to the top."

Wind and solar benefit
Businesses involved in building large wind farms or solar projects will directly benefit from stimulus spending, according to investors. Companies that sell smart-grid equipment and software to utilities, meanwhile, could benefit indirectly from investments to modernize the grid.

In the short term, loans and changes in the way the federal government subsidizes renewable energy will help finance projects that might have been stalled because a lack of tax equity, Kevin Walsh, managing director of renewable energy at GE Energy Financial Services, said at the Jefferies conference. Utilities are also expected to invest in their own renewable energy projects, rather than rely on third parties.

But even with the hefty commitment to clean energy in the stimulus plan, many of the rules surrounding those policies still need to be worked out, Walsh said. He called the current period "the implementation phase" and noted that there is more energy-related legislation in the works, including an expected energy bill this year and climate regulations.

Depending on the industry within green tech, the financial impact from stimulus-related investments won't necessarily be felt this year, Mark Bachman, an equity analyst with Pacific Crest Securities, said in a research note Monday.

"Investors should expect neither loans for renewable energy, manufacturing facilities and transmission projects nor matching smart grid and facility construction grants to add materially to 2009 expectations. The lion's share of these funds will be released in 2010 and impact sales and EPS (earning per share) in late 2010 and beyond," Bachman wrote.

Government-funded bubble?
In all, the stimulus plan has $39 billion in direct investments through the DOE and another $20 billion in tax incentives, Obama said earlier this week. The challenge with implementing these policies is setting subsidies at the right level to promote nascent industries without funding flawed companies, said Paul Clegg, an equity analyst from Jefferies.

"There is a risk that we overstimulate or we keep some of the wrong companies in business," he said. "We're likely to see a lot of boom and bust cycles and, as a result, a lot of volatility."

Even though the DOE made a point in acting quickly by approving a loan to Solyndra, bureaucratic delays or mismanagement are another risk.

"Any time you have a big new initiative, you have to assume a certain amount of waste and a certain amount of mistakes," Foundation Capital's Holland said. "However, directionally, these are really the right things for the country."

Deployments of smart grids should be slowed until security vulnerabilities are addressed, according to some cybersecurity experts, citing tests showing that a hacker can cause a major blackout after breaking into a smart-grid system.

The idea behind smart grids, a burgeoning energy sector in which even Google is playing a role, is that automated meters and two-way power consumption data can be used to improve the efficiency and reliability of an electrical system's power distribution. A washing machine in a household hooked up to a smart meter, for instance, could be set up to run only at lower-cost, off-peak hours, and a home sporting solar panels could give power back to the grid.

Through the U.S. economic-stimulus package, the Department of Energy is set to invest $4.5 billion in smart-grid technology. And while many utilities are embracing the initiative by installing smart meters in millions of homes nationwide, security experts and others caution that the technology may not be ready for prime time. According to a CNN report published Friday evening:

Cybersecurity experts said some types of meters can be hacked, as can other points in the smart grid's communications systems. IOActive, a professional security services firm, determined that an attacker with $500 of equipment and materials, and a background in electronics and software engineering, could "take command and control of the (advanced meter infrastructure), allowing for the en masse manipulation of service to homes and businesses."

Experts said that once in the system, a hacker could gain control of thousands, even millions, of meters and shut them off simultaneously. A hacker also might be able to dramatically increase or decrease the demand for power, disrupting the load balance on the local power grid and causing a blackout. These experts said such a localized power outage would cascade to other parts of the grid, expanding the blackout. No one knows how big it could get.

"Industry is working to make meters more secure. They have done a good job," said Joe Weiss, an expert on utility control systems.

Still, experts like Skoudis recommended that smart-grid deployment be slowed until security vulnerabilities are addressed. Otherwise, he said, smart-grid equipment deployed now may have to be replaced later.

"Before we go rushing headstrong into a Smart Grid concept, we have to make sure that we take care of business, in this case cybersecurity," he said.

Industry regulators and industry executives earlier this month echoed concerns to Congress about rapid smart-grid deployments, cautioning that a lack of industry standards for security, reliability, data sharing, and privacy could result in government money wasted on proprietary smart-grid technologies that are not interoperable with each other and that are destined to soon become obsolete.

"I don't think the sky is falling," William Sanders, principal investigator for the National Science Foundation Cyber Trust Center on Trustworthy Cyber Infrastructure for the Power Grid, told CNN. "I don't think we should stop deployment until we have it all worked out. But we have to be vigilant and address security issues in the smart grid early on."

WASHINGTON--Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced on Thursday a number of ways he will streamline the process by which the Energy Department distributes funding, with the goal of dispersing 70 percent of its funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act by the end of 2010.

"We have undergone a detailed scrubbing of the process," he said. "What we've found is that the old process required too much paperwork and simply took too long. These are sweeping reforms in the way the Department of Energy does business."

The energy investments in the stimulus package intimately tie the reshaping of the energy sector to the country's economic recovery.

Chu called the significant investment "very farsighted."

To get the money out more quickly, Chu announced Thursday he is naming Matt Rogers as a senior adviser to implement the new department reforms. Rogers formerly served as a senior partner at McKinsey and worked with the energy industry for more than 20 years. He also served on the Obama transition team.

The changes Rogers will implement include rolling out appraisals of applications for loan guarantees, rather than waiting for the application deadline to evaluate them. Loan application forms will be simplified and the department will speed up loan underwriting by using outside partners.

With these changes in place, the department should be able to begin offering loan guarantees under its previous loan guarantee program by late April or early May, Chu said, though some recipients may have to secure their own share of the financing or meet other conditions before their applications are approved. With the same financing conditions, the department should be offering loan guarantees under the stimulus legislation by early summer, Chu said.

"The goal is to begin making these investments in months, not years," Chu said.

Among other things, the department also intends to establish a Web site to provide more assistance to applicants and add transparency to the process.

The department will also be working with outside industries to find good projects to finance.

"It'll be interesting to see what the market brings forward," Rogers said Thursday.

When President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act on Tuesday, he said the bill should allow the country to double its use of renewable energy within three years.

Chu said he could not parse out specifically how much of that energy will come from which sources, but he said there are a few mature renewable sources that could help the country reach that goal, such as wind and photovoltaic energy.

"There are numerous wind projects that can go forward," he said. "The Bonneville Power Administration has (transmission) lines sited and those lines will connect to wind farms. This is something that can be done within this two-year period."

Chu said as the government tries to accelerate the use of renewable energies, it will also be exploring different methods of carbon capture and sequestration.

"Right now, to the best of my knowledge, it is not a slam dunk which technology is the right one," he said.

He also said he meets with White House climate czar Carol Browner and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson about once a week to make sure the Energy Department's interests do not conflict with the White House's climate change goals.

As the department works to develop the renewable energy sector, Chu said it is imperative it also fund basic science research.

"If you look at some of the wealth creation in the United States--the Internet, biotech--a lot of that was driven by companies that deeply believed in research like Bell Laboratory, IBM Labs," he said. "In the energy sector, you don't have that. What I see is the Department of Energy filling that vacuum."

President Obama signed into law a government stimulus package Tuesday and said the energy provisions will pave the path for doubling the amount of renewable energy in the next three years.

Energy is a major piece of the massive $787 billion package, totaling about $38 billion in government spending and about $20 billion in tax incentives over the next 10 years, according to estimates.

Obama signed the bill, called the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, into law at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science where he later took a tour of the museum's solar-panel installation.

The energy portions of the law are intended to promote rapid development of renewable energy sources and increase energy efficiency in buildings, appliances, and other sectors of the economy.

The president said he hoped that the clean-energy-related portions of the bill will inspire Americans the same way that President Kennedy's goal to put a man on the moon did in the 1960s.

"I hope this investment will ignite our imagination once more in science, medicine, energy and make our economy stronger, our nation more secure, and our planet safer for our children," Obama said before signing the bill.

The major energy-related portions of the law were largely left intact after Congressional debate. Overall, the plan will more than triple the amount of spending on clean-energy programs, said Daniel Weiss, a fellow at the Center for American Progress.

Major energy portions include:

• A three-year extension to the tax credit for wind, which would have expired at the end of this year, and an extension until the end of 2013 for geothermal and biomass renewable-energy projects. The credit has been increased to 30 percent of the investment.

• $4.5 billion in direct spending to modernize the electricity grid with smart-grid technologies.

• $6.3 billion in state energy-efficient and clean-energy grants and $4.5 billion to make federal buildings more energy efficient.

• $6 billion in loan guarantees for renewable energy systems, biofuel projects, and electric-power transmission facilities.

• $2 billion in loans to manufacture advanced batteries and components for applications such as plug-in electric cars.

• $5 billion to weatherize homes of up to 1 million low-income people.

• $3.4 billion appropriated to the Department of Energy for fossil energy research and development, such as storing carbon dioxide underground at coal power plants.

• A tax credit of between $2,500 and $5,000 for purchase of plug-in electric vehicles, available for the first 200,000 placed into service.

(Click here for full summary from the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE) and from law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf.)

Measuring the impact
In general, companies in the green-technology field have welcomed the focus on energy efficiency and renewable energy production in the law.

The law gives renewable-energy project developers an alternative to the existing federal subsidy. Many renewable-energy projects have been stalled, or scrapped, because many investors don't have enough income to take advantage of a 30 percent federal tax credit. The bill now allows renewable-energy project developers to effectively get the same credit by applying for a loan from the Department of Energy for 30 percent of the project, explained Rhone Resch, the president of the Solar Energy Industry Association (SEIA).

The loan guarantees are designed to help companies to commercialize new energy technologies, by providing money for a manufacturing facility, for example. A number of green-tech companies, including flywheel storage company Beacon Power, electric-car company Tesla Motors, and battery maker A123 Systems have applied

More generally, investors and analysts said that the significance of the law is that it's a step toward crafting a more comprehensive energy policy, based on sustained commitment to renewable energy and efficiency.

"For years, U.S. policymakers' support for clean energy has been uneven," said Michael Liebreich, the CEO of research firm New Energy Finance, in a statement. "No longer...the U.S. will have a great chance to be the growth engine for our industry over the next several years.

The spending on the bill on things like smart grid technologies and energy efficiency should have a rapid impact, said Dennis Costello, a venture capitalist at Braemar Energy Ventures. But he said that even with the economic stimulus of the government spending, the conditions for energy technology firms remains very difficult.

Specifically, he said the drop in the cost of oil over the past year makes it harder for a firm that is seeking to develop a replacement, such as biofuels. Also, the overall recession continues to dampen demand for products and financing remains challenging.

"It's kind of refreshing to see at least beginnings of a real energy policy, some sort of unified approach to our energy problems," Costello said. "But it isn't going to solve our energy problems. There are a lot of countervailing factors to give pause to being overexuberant on the future of energy sector and clean tech."

Analysts noted there are other challenges to a rapid change in the slow-moving energy sector.

The stimulus act gives the Department of Energy control over billions of dollars in loans and spending on research and development projects--more than the department's annual budget. But the Energy Department has not dispersed money in the past few years because of its slow approval process, which Secretary Steven Chu said he intends to speed up.

Also, a sharp increase in renewable energy from wind and solar power requires building new power lines to bring electricity from windy and sunny areas to more populated regions.

Bramaer's Costello said an industry association estimated that the stimulus act spending could lead to 3,000 new miles of transmission lines. However, siting these new lines is a contentious process and likely to meet local and state opposition.

"Siting of transmission lines is this going to be the Achilles' heel of renewables," said Elgie Holstein, a senior energy policy adviser in the Obama administration.