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May 2005: Just as a global silicon shortage begins driving up prices of solar photovoltaics, Solyndra is founded to provide a cost-competitive alternative to silicon-based panels.

July 2005: The Bush administration signs the Energy Policy Act of 2005 into law, creating the 1703 loan guarantee program.

February 2006 - October 2006: In February, Solyndra raises its first round of venture financing, worth $10.6 million from CMEA Capital, Redpoint Ventures, and U.S. Venture Partners. In October, Argonaut Venture Capital, an investment arm of George Kaiser, invests $17 million into Solyndra. Madrone Capital Partners, an investment arm of the Walton family, invests $7 million. Those investments are part of a $78.2 million fund.

December 2006: Solyndra applies for a loan guarantee under the 1703 program.

Late 2007: Loan guarantee program is funded. Solyndra was one of 16 clean-tech companies deemed ready to move forward in the due diligence process. The Bush administration DOE moves forward to develop a conditional commitment.

October 2008: Then Solyndra CEO Chris Gronet touted reasons for building in Silicon Valley and noted that the "company's second factory also will be built in Fremont, since a Department of Energy loan guarantee mandates a U.S. location."

November 2008: Silicon prices remain very high on the spot market, making non-silicon based thin film technologies like Solyndra's very attractive to investors. Solyndra also benefits from having very low installation costs. The company raises $144 million from ten different venture investors, including the Walton-family run Madrone Capital Partners. This brings total private investment to more than $450 million to date.

January 2009: In an effort to show it has done something to support renewable energy, the Bush administration tries to take Solyndra before a DOE credit review committee just one day before President Obama is inaugurated. The committee, consisting of career civil servants with financial expertise, remands the loan back to DOE because it wasn't ready for conditional commitment.

March 2009: The same credit committee approves the strengthened loan application. The deal passes on to DOE's credit review board. Career staff (not political appointees) within the DOE issue a conditional commitment setting out terms for a guarantee.

June 2009: As more silicon production facilities come online while demand for PV wavers due to the economic slowdown, silicon prices start to drop. Meanwhile, the Chinese begin rapidly scaling domestic manufacturing and set a path toward dramatic, unforeseen cost reductions in PV. Between June of 2009 and August of 2011, PV prices drop more than 50 percent.

September 2009: Solyndra raises an additional $219 million. Shortly after, the DOE closes a $535 million loan guarantee after six months of due diligence. This is the first loan guarantee issued under the 1703 program. From application to closing, the process took three years -- not the 41 days that is sometimes reported.

January - June 2010: As the price of conventional silicon-based PV continues to fall due to low silicon prices and a glut of solar modules, investors and analysts start questioning Solyndra's ability to compete in the marketplace. Despite pulling its IPO (as dozens of companies did in 2010), Solyndra raises an additional $175 million from investors.

November 2010: Solyndra closes an older manufacturing facility and concentrates operations at Fab 2, the plant funded by the $535 million loan guarantee. The Fab 2 plant is completed that same month -- on time and on budget -- employing around 3,000 construction workers during the build-out, just as the DOE projected.

February 2011: Due to a liquidity crisis, investors provide $75 million to help restructure the loan guarantee. The DOE rightly assumed it was better to give Solyndra a fighting chance rather than liquidate the company -- which was a going concern -- for market value, which would have guaranteed significant losses.

March 2011: Republican Representatives complain that DOE funds are not being spent quickly enough.

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.): "Despite the administration's urgency and haste to pass the [American Recovery and Reinvestment Act] ... billions of dollars have yet to be spent."

And House Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Chairman Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.): "The whole point of the Democrats' stimulus bill was to spend billions of dollars ... most of the money still hasn't been spent."

June 2011: Average selling prices for solar modules drop to $1.50 a watt and continue on a pathway to $1 a watt. Solyndra says it has cut costs by 50 percent, but analysts worry how the company will compete with the dramatic changes in conventional PV.

August 2011: DOE refuses to restructure the loan a second time.

September 2011: Solyndra closes its manufacturing facility, lays off 1,100 workers, and files for bankruptcy. The news is touted as a failure of the Obama administration and the loan guarantee office. However, as of Sept. 12, the DOE loan programs office closed or issued conditional commitments of $37.8 billion to projects around the country. The $535 million loan is only 1.3 percent of DOE's loan portfolio. To date, Solyndra is the only loan that's known to be troubled.

Meanwhile, after complaining about stimulus funds moving too quickly, Upton and Stearns are now claiming that the administration was pushing funds out the door too quickly: "In the rush to get stimulus cash out the door, despite repeated claims by the administration to the contrary, some bets were bad from the beginning."

What critics fail to mention is that the Solyndra deal is more than three years old, and started under the Bush administration, which tried to conditionally approve the loan right before Obama took office. Rather than "pushing funds out the door too quickly," the Obama administration restructured the original loan when it came into office to further protect the taxpayers' investment. http://www.grist.org/solar-power/2011-09-13-bush-admin-pushed-solyndra
-loan-guarantee-for-two-years called "getting real".



Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off

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FEDERAL SOLAR POWER INCENTIVES
Solar Energy Federal Tax Credit

Residents and businesses receive a tax credit worth 30 percent of the cost of buying and installing a photovoltaic system. This legislation is part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (Section 1336- 1337).

The latest renewable energy tax credit went into effect on January 1, 2009. At this time, for residential solar power systems you can take 30% off your taxes for the cost of the solar power system.

Federal Modified Accelerated Cost-Recovery System (MACRS)

Under the Modified Accelerated Cost-Recovery System (MACRS), 26 USC § 168, businesses can recover investments in solar and wind and geothermal property through depreciation deductions. The MACRS establishes a set of class lives for various types of property, ranging from three to 50 years, over which the property may be depreciated. For solar, wind and geothermal property placed in service after 1986, the current MACRS lifetime class is five years.

Special 50% First year Depreciation Allowance

This IRS depreciation allowance, IRS Section 179, allows a 50% first year depreciation deduction for equipment placed into service. Check IRS publication 946 for more details.

Renewable Energy Systems Improvement Grant

Agricultural producers and rural small businesses may be eligible for a grant that pays up to 25 percent of the project costs. This program grants up to $500,000 per renewable-energy project. Awards are made on a competitive basis. http://www.solartechnologies.com/cm/About-Solar-Power/Solar-Power-Ince
ntives.html, and here's an interactive link where you can find state-by-state descriptions of tax incentives for renewable energy. It coverse state, local, utility and federal incentives: http://www.dsireusa.org/

So it's being done both ways, for the individual and for companies. This is only for solar, I'm not going to bother looking for the other alternative-energies.


Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off