More clean energy has come online with help from the 2009 stimulus-backed loan guarantee program.
Ormat Technologies said this week that the McGinness Hills geothermal plant in Lander County, Nev., which actually began putting out power in mid-June, had met requirements for commercial operation under its financing obligations.
Ormat received a partial guarantee for a $350 million loan – 20 percent of the guarantee was the responsibility of a private lender – under the Section 1705 program that was part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The loans supported construction of three geothermal power plants in Nevada. McGinness Hills was the last of the three to go into service.