On Friday, the White House released a review of the Department of Energy’s (DOE) renewable energy loan guarantee program — a program that brought financial ruin to many companies, including Solyndra, SustainableBusiness.com reports.
According to the website, the White House ordered an independent review of the program following the Solyndra investigation. The review, however, did not focus solely on Solyndra, but on improving the program as a whole.
According to SustainableBusiness.com, the task force recommended that the DOE develop an “early warning system” that would monitor market trends and keep a closer watch on the status of each loan recipient and related firms that could impact the loans.
The task force also suggested that the DOE “better clarify lines of authority among managers and implement more explicit objectives and standards in managing loans.” They also suggested creating a Chief Risk Officer position that would oversee a Risk Management Unit responsible for monitoring the loans.
“The task force concluded the overall loan portfolio is expected to perform well and holds less risk than Congress originally anticipated when they approved the program. They also found the DOE has done a good job of balancing the inevitable risks in the range of projects it selected,” SustainableBusiness.com reports.
“We have always known that there were inherent risks in backing innovative technologies at full commercial scale, and it is very likely that there will be other companies in the portfolio that won’t succeed,” DOE Secretary Chu said, according to SustainableBusiness.com. “But the vast majority of companies are expected to pay the loans back in full, on time and with about $8 billion in interest — while supporting a total of 60,000 American jobs and helping us compete in a rapidly growing global industry,” Politico reported, according to SustainableBusiness.com.