Through Title 17, Loans Program Office (LPO) can provide access to debt capital for large-scale energy projects that use innovative technology. Projects using technology that has not been deployed at a commercial scale often face difficulty accessing debt from private lenders because the technology does not have a history of commercial operation.
LPO can provide financing that meets the specific needs of individual borrowers. LPO can be the sole lender to a project or can co-lend with or guarantee loans from private lenders. Additionally, LPO has the capacity to finance large projects as a sole lender or to fill gaps in financing as part of a group of lenders.
Lenders often prefer to engage with a project when the deal is fully formed; however, LPO encourages early engagement during project development. LPO can take the time to dive deep and understand the project and its technology. And after loan closing, LPO remains a valuable partner to borrowers throughout the entire loan term.
LPO maintains an in-house team of financial, technical, legal, and environmental experts that have expertise with first-of-kind projects and a variety of deal structures. To date, LPO has provided more than $30 billion in debt financing.
The interest rate for loans that are issued by the Federal Financing Bank (FFB) and backed by a 100 percent DOE loan guarantee will be calculated at the applicable U.S. Treasury rate for the tenor of the loan plus a FFB liquidity spread and a risk-based charge that may be collected up front or as a credit-based interest rate spread over the life of the loan.
In order to be eligible for this program your project must meet these requirements.
LPO eligibility requirements stipulate that the Project must employ New or Significantly Improved Technology as compared to Commercial Technology in service in the United States, including projects that employ elements of commercial technologies in combination with New or Significantly Improved Technologies. This “innovation” must constitute one or more meaningful and important improvements in productivity or value and NOT be “Commercial Technology.” Commercial Technology is defined as technology that has been installed in and is being used in three or more commercial projects in the United States in the same general application as in the proposed project.
LPO eligibility requirements stipulate that the Project must avoid, reduce, utilize, or sequester anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases. LPO determines eligibility under this requirement for this solicitation by performing an independent greenhouse gas life cycle analysis to determine whether or not the project is an improvement over a “business-as-usual” case.
An “Eligible Project” is from any of the categories listed in the solicitation, does not make use of technologies concerned or associated with fossil fuels or nuclear energy and: