U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu has announced that a partial loan guarantee for a USD1.3 billion loan has been finalized to support what is being called the world’s largest wind farm. The loan will finance an 845MW wind generation facility in eastern Oregon. The 338 unit Caithness Shepherds Flat project is the first in North America to utilize GE 2.5xl wind turbines. This project is the largest to date to receive a loan guarantee under the Financial Institution Partnership Program (FIPP). The Department of Energy, through the Loan Programs Office, has issued loan guarantees or offered conditional commitments for loan guarantees to support 16 clean energy projects totaling over 37 million MW hours of capacity, at a cost of nearly USD 16.5 billion. Additional DOE-supported projects include solar thermal projects and a 2200MW nuclear power plant.
