The $20B US ‘green bank’ program just funded its first project
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The complicated regulatory and financial requirements are some of the reasons why it has taken months for the consortiums to start dishing out green bank funds. But somebody eventually had to go first.
That honor goes to Climate United, the consortium in charge of nearly $7 billion in federal green bank funding, more than any other group. On Tuesday, it announced what is both its first investment and the first project financed by the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund: a $31.8 million loan for Scenic Hill Solar, a Little Rock, Arkansas–based solar developer.
That money will provide pre-construction financing for solar installations that will help lower the utility bills and carbon footprint of the University of Arkansas system. At 66 megawatts across 16 sites, the project will be the largest commercial solar deployment in Arkansas and the fourth-largest university renewable energy deployment in the country.