The Export-Import Bank of the United States has approved $61 million in loan guarantees to Seoul-based Gochang Solar Park Co. for buying solar panels from SolarWorld Industries America and building five power plants in Korea.

The loan guarantees allow Gochang Solar Park to borrow money from the Private Export Funding Corp. The financing includes the $10.2 million for constructing the power plants, the Ex-Im Bank said Wednesday. The loans are to be repaid in 13.5 years. The bank has provided loan guarantees for other solar business development before, including a $25 million credit line to United Solar Ovonic in Auburn Hills, Mich. last year. 

The bank, the export credit agency of the U.S. government, created the Office of Renewable Energy and Environmental Exports in 2007 to expand its effort on helping American companies export their goods and services. In the last five years, the bank has provided $400 million in loan guarantees and other types of financing to renewable energy companies in solar, wind and geothermal sectors, said Craig O'Connor, director of the bank's renewable energy office. 

The five power plants in Korea, with a combined capacity of 15 megawatts, were completed last September and are generating power on a 97-acre land in southwestern Korea. The electricity is sold to Korea Electric Power Corp. under a 15-year deal. Gochang completed the projects by lining up the financing in Korea first, a move made to meet deadlines and benefit from Korea’s feed-in tariff, which is a government-set price for solar electricity. The Korean financing is now converted into the Ex-Im Bank’s loan guarantees, the bank said.

SolarWorld Industries America is based in Hillsboro, Ore., where it opened a silicon wafer and solar cell factory last October. It has a 100-megawatt panel assembly factory in Camarillo, Calif.

The company is the North American subsidiary of the Germany company, SolarWorld AG. SolarWorld AG recently built a 150-megawatt solar panel factory in South Korea via its joint venture with SolarPark Engineering Co.

Live blogging from the BIPV Summit in San Diego -- Stanford "Stan" Ovshinsky, now 86-years old, is the Yoda of the solar market. In his words, "I lived through the great depression but I didn't know what was that great about it." He, along with his wife, co-founded ECD in 1960 and are some of the pioneers of renewable energy technology. He's the inventor of ECD's flexible solar (triple junction a-Si) as well as many of the nickel-metal-hydride batteries used in today's electric vehicles. He has 400 U.S. patents. Ovshinsky was the keynote speaker at todays' BIPV summit in San Diego. Raised in the machine shops and factories of Akron Ohio in what was then the rubber capital of the world, Ovshinsky started raising money in 1977 to advance amorphous and disordered material.  In 1980 he started building a machine. Ovshinsky's critics and competitors call his original machine a white elephant -- eight generations of commercial machines later, ECD has a production machine with 30 megawatts of annual capacity.  It's a low-cost continuous web machine akin to  newspaper and photographic film production (technologies that Stanford acknowledged might not be around much longer. "You've got be make it cheap, not low cost" Stan left ECD in 2007 and started Ovshinsky Innovation LLC.  He left because the board did not share his vision of tremendous growth. A subsidiary of his new firm, Ovshinsky Solar, looks to build 1 gigawatt of solar electrical production at a cost lower than coal.  Ovshinsky agrees with Dr, Steven Chu, the Secretary of Energy in believing that solar has to be five times better. A few quotes:

• "We need to use science and technology to change the world."

• "What drove me wasn't awards, or money or power. ECD, in its' time, was a place for people of all races to reach their potential and work together for a common cause to change the world."

• "If you put it on a personal basis, what you are doing is making a fair and equitable world and saving a planet worth saving."

A great man and an inspirational life. You can read mores about Stanford Ovshinsky here and here.

The electric car phenomenon rolls on. Mitsubishi announced today that it will bring its i MiEV all-electric car to the U.S. The car will likely appear in Oregon first: the state of Oregon along with utility Portland General Electric are helping Mitsubishi by agreeing to build charging stations. Mitsubishi did not put deadlines on when it will bring the cars to the states, but it could be sooner rather than later. It will start releasing the cars in Japan in July. Shipping in July will mean that Mitsubishi will become the first company to ship a "practical" electric car. The company has a point there. Right now, you can buy a cheap electric car from Zenn that tops out at around 25 miles per hour or a $109,000 Tesla Roadster, but there's not a lot of options in between. Mitsubishi is focusing on mid-range cars like Nissan, but it also has high-end sporty prototypes like the cars from Tesla Motors and Fisker Automotive. (Fisker is a plug-in hybrid but mostly runs on electricity.) And, like Nissan, it will initially sell to government agencies and fleet car buyers. These sort of cars don't leave town much on road trips so the limited range of electric cars are less of a problem. The i MiEV runs on a lithium-ion battery pack that can be charged in seven or so hours on a 240-volt line. High-speed charging could accomplish this task in less time, but good luck finding an outlet.

The idea seemed really promising a few years ago. Ethanol producer Aventine Renewable Energy Holdings has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, according to, among others, the Wall Street Journal. Last month, it warmed that this might happen if it couldn't raise further funds. The company lists $799 in assets and $491 in liabilities. "The ethanol industry currently suffers from poor operating margins as a result of supply exceeding existing demand, including the 2009 renewable fuel standard mandate," Aventine said. "Ethanol demand has been negatively affected by low gasoline prices, which has all but eliminated the discretionary consumption of ethanol." Chalk it up to commodity pricing. Corn has steadily declined in price, but so has gas. Even with generous federal subsidies, corn ethanol producers are suffering. In fact, even when gas was at $4 a barrel it was tough for corn ethanol makers to make any money. In January 2006, ethanol sold for $3 a barrel, while a bushel of corn cost $2. In early 2007, ethanol sold for $2 per barrel and corn went for $4.20 a bushel, said Michael Eckhart of the American Council on Renewable Energy back in 2007. "We have seen the most profitable space in the fuel business disappear in a year," said Eckhart. Corn is also one of the most inefficient ways to produce ethanol. Sugar ethanol, however, is not imported to the U.S. in great volumes because of tariffs and cellulosic ethanol remains in the development stage. Companies like Range Fuels and others continue to push out commercial production. Manufacturers are nowhere near the federal goals for production. Verasun and others are suffering similar problems. Still, don't count ethanol out. The U.S. has a mandate of producing 36 billion gallons of biofuels by 2022.