The White House has secured more than $4 billion in commitments from major foundations, institutional investors and private sector philanthropists to help fight climate change through clean energy projects, officials announced before Tuesday's Clean Energy Investment Summit.
"Taken together, these commitments far surpass the initial $2 billion goal set at the launch of the Administration's Clean Energy Investment Initiative last February," wrote U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz.
Pension funds and other institutional investors committed the largest investments, including $500 million from Goldman Sachs, $500 million from the University of California, $350 million from the New Zealand Superannuation Fund, $200 million from the Alaska Permanent Fund and $100 million from TIAA-CREF, according to USA Today.
To further encourage investment in solar, wind and clean fuel technologies, the Obama administration said it plans to implement a series of executive actions.
These include facilitating new guidance to allow charitable organizations to invest in for-profit businesses conducting clean energy research, as well as launching a new Clean Energy Impact Investment Center to make information about energy and climate programs more accessible and understandable to the public and to mission-driven investors, reported USA Today. A third executive action will aim to "improve financing options from the U.S. Small Business Administration for private investment funds seeking long-term capital," wrote Moniz.
"The idea is to make the department's resources ... including of course our 17 national laboratories ... more readily available to the public, including the mission driven investors," Moniz told reporters, according to Reuters.
Since 2010, employment in the solar industry has grown more than 85 percent, and the price of rooftop solar technology has plummeted more than 50 percent, the White House said, adding that since President Obama took office, wind power generation has tripled and solar electricity generation has increased 20-fold.
Zurich's UBS Bank, the largest private bank in the world, issued a paper last August advising its clients that "large-scale, centralized power stations" are 10 to 20 years away from extinction, at least in Europe, and predicted that houses and businesses will find it cheaper and easier to generate their own power.
"By 2025, everybody will be able to produce and store power. And it will be green and cost-competitive, ie, not more expensive or even cheaper than buying power from utilities," UBS said. "Solar is at the edge of being a competitive power generation technology. The biggest drawback has been its intermittency. This is where batteries and electric vehicles come into play. Battery costs have declined rapidly, and we expect a further decline of more than 50% by 2020."
