More green for green

The $27.2 billion Department of Energy budget proposed by the president this week revives a popular project development subsidy and reiterates a goal for clean energy over the next 25 years.Those are  a couple of the highlights of the plan, which trends toward green in the overall energy scheme, as previous Obama budgets have, while boosting nuclear and making another attempt to cut fossil fuel support.The Fiscal Year 2013 plan slightly raises current expenditures to $27.2 billion, a 3.2 percent, or $856 million increase over current spending levels.

“The choice we face as a nation is simple: do we want the clean energy technologies of tomorrow to be invented in America by American innovators, made by American workers and sold around the world, or do we want to concede those jobs to our competitors?  We can and must compete for those jobs,” said Energy Secretary Steven Chu.

It’s already been described and derided as a political document meant to establish priorities, especially in an election year. So be it.

The emphasis retuurns to the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy division of the department.

But one section that cheers the clean energy industry is the revival of the so-called Section 1603 cash grants in lieu of tax credits that provided funding for renewable projects as the tax equity market continues to be insufficient for project demand.

Rhone Resch, President and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA). “The 1603 program has helped leverage over $24 billion in private sector investment in for a wide range of clean energy projects, and extending the 1603 program will create an additional 37,000 jobs in the American solar industry in this year alone. ”

The budget continues the path set out last year to obtain clean electricity through a clean energy standard that includes renewables like wind, solar and geothermal while adding nuclear and natural gas to the mix. The target is 80 percent by 2035.

The FY 2013 budget request of $2.34 billion, an increase of 29.1 percent from the FY 2012 appropriation of $1.81 billion.

“The FY 2013 budget request continues work to transform the Nation’s energy infrastructure by investing over $840M in renewable energy programs,” the document says.

The controversial loan program gets short shrift in the new budget, as the Department awaits a review of it spurred by the Solyndra failure. No lending authority is sought in the FY 2013 budget.

The Department is focusing on making solar more affordable through the SunShot program it initiated last year.

It seeks to cut costs by 75 percent and make it cost competitive with other forms of energy, without subsidies, by the end of the decade.

Much of the costs borne for the new energy economy, a non-starter so far, is borne by the elimination of $4 billion in oil and gas subsidies. That annual proposal has gotten nowhere.

But the green energy statement at budget time continues.