Good news for European green energy developers, from yesterday’s Wall Street Journal:
“The U.S. government handed out $502 million in grants for a dozen wind- and solar-power projects from Maine to South Texas, the first round in a new subsidy program designed to spur renewable-energy investment.”
What’s interesting about this is that the majority of the $502 million has been awarded to European companies and private-equity controlled developers. On the Iberian penninsula alone, $294 million went to Spanish wind developer Iberdrola SA, while Energias de Portugal SA received $47.7 million, via their US subsidiary Horizon Wind Energy.
As Bradley Woods’ Dan Ripp explained during the StepOne-UIMP course earlier this summer, there are currently a number of great opportunities for smart Spanish companies to enter the US market, provided their offerings dovetail with the Obama administration’s goals for economic recovery. In this case, Iberdrola and Energias de Portugal won grants because they’re meeting three of these goals: more clean energy, more energy independence, and more jobs. From this $502 million investment, the government is expecting to create 2000 US jobs, as well the capacity to generate 850 megawatts of clean, domestically produced energy, roughly enough for 500,000 homes.
Cleantech startups take note: even if your offering is a few quarters away from export-readiness, “[t]he program has no cap and government officials pledged to award grants to all qualified applicants through 2011.”