Uncle Sam bets on wind

Geithner and Chu dole out $550 million in green stimulus dollars, bringing total to over $1 billion.

Timothy Geithner and Steven Chu announced $550 million in new awards through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act clean energy program yesterday, bringing the total to more than $1 billion awarded to date to companies committed to investing in domestic renewable energy production.

The biggest winners were wind companies:  Pyron Wind Farm in Texas pulled in $121.9 million, Barton Wind Farm in Iowa, got $93.4 million, and Farmers City Wind Farm in Missouri received $84.9 million.  Venture capitalists have shied away from wind recently in favor of solar, energy storage and smart grid technologies.  The new infusions are also larger than typical VC rounds, though not quite on the level of the recent investments in Solyndra ($535 million) or the loan to Tesla ($465 million). Many of the beneficiaries received infusions barely worthy of a superangel;  Solar Billboard Property in North Carolina got $5,850.

Given the bigger infusions, it seems the public and private sectors are carving out their respective niches: private funding will take care of the computer-based conservation solutions and deep-dive new technologies, while Uncle Sam funds the established clean tech solutions that simply require mounds of project financing cash. 

The list of beneficiaries is below: