Cleantech Grants: Joshua Mosshart Obama and Foundations $2Billion In...

Cleantech Grants: Joshua Mosshart Obama and Foundations $2Billion In...: The Obama Administration launched a Clean Energy Initiative and has a goal to deploy $2 billion into private sector investments. The ta...

Joshua Mosshart Obama and Foundations $2Billion Investment Initiative

The Obama Administration launched a Clean Energy Initiative and has a goal to deploy $2 billion into private sector investments. The target is innovative solutions for climate change, including clean technologies that have potential to reduce carbon pollution, improve energy costs, performance and scalability of low-carbon energy technologies to fight the climate change war. 

The Department of Energy (DOE) will help the Clean Energy Investment Initiative by leading an effort to identify opportunities to mobilize a broad range of philanthropists and impact investors to scale up investments throughout the energy innovation pipeline, from laboratory R&D to startup funding to growth-stage financing supporting a technology innovation.

In Addition, philanthropic and private sector leaders are making initial announcements toward scaling investments in clean energy innovation, including:

The University of California Board of Regents will build on its commitment to allocate at least $1 billion of its endowment and pension over five years for investments in solutions to climate change by developing an innovative vehicle that combines three complementary objectives: 

•  First, to partner with philanthropists interested in de-risking early-stage technologies with high climate related impact potential. 
• Second, to target, through the independently managed vehicle, for-profit investments in technologies with the potential to deliver both significant climate change mitigation and high investment returns.
•  Third, to partner with the world's largest institutional investors in a follow-on facility that will offer proven technologies and companies an "on ramp" to commercial scale.  

The Office of the Chief Investment Officer will engage with foundations, family offices, and institutional investors to strengthen this long-term innovation pipeline.

The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation will work to connect investors with early-stage clean energy companies, so that a growing number of foundations and other mission-driven organizations can efficiently and effectively finance innovative technologies with high impact potential. 

• The Foundation has developed deep experience in building and sustaining multi-foundation alliances to limit the risks of climate change and advance clean energy.

The Schmidt Family Foundation has allocated a significant portion of its assets to impact investing, with the aim of filling market gaps to finance solutions that mitigate climate change. To help grow the community of practice alongside other institutions, the Foundation will share its expertise and ongoing findings in sourcing, vetting, and structuring impact investments, especially for pre-market technologies.

Wells Fargo will build on its commitment of $100 million in environmental grants by 2020 to accelerate the transition to a greener economy, which includes the $10 million Innovation Incubator (IN2) program to foster the development of early-stage energy efficiency technologies for commercial buildings. 

Co-administered by DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), this first-of-its-kind program will provide startups with grant funding, mentorship, research and testing support at NREL, and real-world field testing in Wells Fargo buildings to de-risk these technologies and accelerate their commercial adoption.  

Having developed this unique expertise in collaborating with a National Laboratory and deploying foundation dollars to support energy startups, Wells Fargo will work to expand investment partnerships for these field-tested technologies and to rally other major companies to build complementary programs that support clean energy innovation.

DOE's ARPA-E has invested approximately $1.1 billion across more than 400 potentially transformational energy technology projects. 

The President’s FY16 Budget also called for $325 million for DOE’S ARPA-E to further support potentially transformative applied energy research.

DOE’s Solar Access to Public Capital working group has assembled over 300 leading organizations working together to increase public capital markets’ financing of solar energy projects.

Joshua Mosshart BIO

Cleantech Grants

The White House

Source: The White House, Office of the Press Secretary.