White House announces major renewable energy support at Solar Summit

The Obama administration has reaffirmed its support for the solar power sector, and will promote the construction of new installations in federally subsidised housing and on military bases.

The White House announced the new Solar Market Pathways programme last week that will see a US$15 million (£8.9 million) funding package boost shared or community solar programmes and local funding initiatives.

The announcement was made at a Solar Summit event at the White House and the new agreement will also create a partnership between the Agriculture Department, the Department of Energy (DoE), and the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) to bolster the adoption of solar power in rural areas.

The Obama administration is also increasing its efforts to promote solar installations on federal property through a new Capital Solar Challenge, which will encourage government subsidised complexes to increase the use of solar power in their energy mix.

The new measures are part of president Obama's Climate Action Plan which was unveiled last year.

Targets of the Plan include the installation of 100MW of rooftop solar energy on federally subsidised housing by 2020, more than tripling existing capacity.

The US Army announced a solar power project last year that would provide around 25 per cent of the electricity at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, as part of its commitment to deploy 3GW of renewable energy by 2025.

The DoE also unveiled its draft Renewable Energy and Efficient Energy Projects Loan Guarantee Solicitation on Wednesday which would lead to around US$2.5 billion in loan guarantees being made available for new solar energy projects.