QUICK NEWS, November 3: MORE INVESTIGATING OF THE LOANS; GERMANS CUT F-I-T RATE; WIRES TO TAKE MIDWEST NEW ENERGY TO SOUTHEAST

MORE INVESTIGATING OF THE LOANS
White House Orders Review of Energy Department’s Loan Program
Mike Dorning and Jim Snyder, October 28, 2011 (Bloomberg News)

"The Obama administration ordered a review of the Energy Department’s loan program as House Republicans consider subpoenaing more White House records about a guarantee for failed solar-panel maker Solyndra LLC…The analysis, to be conducted by former Treasury official Herbert Allison, will look at the department’s loan portfolio and focus on future monitoring and management…

"The Energy Department’s $535 million loan guarantee for Solyndra in 2009 has become the focus of a political controversy and a congressional investigation after the Fremont, California- based company filed for bankruptcy protection on Sept. 6…The administration has repeatedly defended its efforts to support development of alternative energy sources since Solyndra’s collapse. Obama has cited the need to compete with China’s investment in clean-energy technology."

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"Energy Secretary Steven Chu said… the department’s loan programs ‘are putting thousands of Americans to work’ and will help the U.S. compete for clean- energy jobs. Chu said he welcomed the review and directed staff to cooperate…The energy panel has been investigating the Solyndra loan since February…Solyndra made cylindrical thin-film solar panels and it used the loan guarantee to build a manufacturing facility…The administration has already given Congress more than 70,000 pages of documents from federal agencies involved in the Solyndra loan guarantee…

"Allison, 68, was named by Obama in 2009 as assistant secretary of Treasury to oversee the Troubled Asset Relief Program. During the Bush administration, he was named president of Fannie Mae after it entered into government conservatorship in September 2008. He previously served as chairman and chief executive officer of TIAA-CREF, the largest retirement-plan manager for U.S. teachers… was chairman of Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign in the 2000 Republican primaries and…served as president and chief operating officer of Merrill Lynch…"


GERMANS CUT F-I-T RATE
Kurth: "Compensation from 1 January 2012 to 15 percent lower"
October 27, 2011 (Bundesnetzagentur)

"…[T]he new reimbursement rates for photovoltaic systems (PV systems)… with effect from 1 January 2012 to go into operation, the plant operator, for each injected into the net kilowatt hour of electricity, an amount of between 17.94 cents and 24.43 cents, depending on location and size of the plant…Over the past twelve months…[building reached a] total capacity of 5,200 MW. This value means that the remuneration of PV systems that go from January 1, 2012 will be 15 percent lower than the current remuneration..."

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"The pay and scale sets for the following year… according to the requirements of the Renewable Energies Act (EEG)…For the payment of electricity from PV systems is the so-called system of breathing cover. Here, the scale rate changes…on an annual basis of scale of nine percent, depending on the actual annex…During the period 1 October 2010 to 30 September 2011 was reported to the Federal Network Agency's additional construction of a total PV installations above the legal threshold of 4,500 MW…A maximum reduction of 24 percent would have occurred if the value would have been about 7,500 MW…"


WIRES TO TAKE MIDWEST NEW ENERGY TO SOUTHEAST
Transmission Project Aims To Carry 7 GW Of Renewable Energy From Midwest To Southeast U.S.
27 October 2011 (North American Windpower)

"Plains and Eastern Clean Line LLC has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)… to identify the benefits that high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission projects may have and to explore…means to improve system reliability, increase resource flexibility and enhance the potential for the integration of renewables.

"Clean Line Energy Partners LLC…[said this is] one step closer to bringing low-cost clean energy to consumers across the Mid-South and Southeast…[T]he transmission-line project will help position Memphis, Tenn., as a hub for clean energy distribution in the Southeast by delivering clean energy from western Oklahoma, southwest Kansas and the Texas Panhandle to TVA, Arkansas and other eastern markets."

click thru for the company's complete listing of economic benefits from the new transmission

"The project will consist of approximately 800 miles of overhead HVDC transmission lines that will allow TVA, Arkansas and other eastern markets to receive more than 7 GW of new clean energy from the Great Plains…

"… TVA will continue to perform collaborative and/or independent technical wind integration studies…[and] TVA and Clean Line will conduct studies to identify the benefits of HVDC…Support is growing…[T]he Memphis, Light, Gas and Water Division board of commissioners recently passed a resolution unanimously in support of the development and implementation of clean energy transported by HVDC transmission…"