A September, 2009 article by Fresh Energy (a nonprofit organization leading the transition toward a clean, efficient and fair U.S. energy system) reported that Minnesota was slated to get about $26 million for “green” energy projects.

Of that amount, $3 million was part of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Cities program, which aims to increase solar participation in selected cities.

Other project categories included: residential and small business renewable energy rebates for systems 40 kilowatts and under ($5 million); school district and local government grant programs ($6.5 million); an assistance package to help businesses develop renewable energy, energy storage, and geothermal heating and cooling ($2 million); energy efficiency and renewable energy on the part of the St. Paul Port Authority ($2 million); and energy efficiency and renewable energy to commercial and industrial buildings ($4.3 million).

Minnesota’s renewable energy contractors are up in arms at the failure of the funds to emerge. In fact, the $5 million in federal stimulus money (via the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009) is being held up by the U.S. Energy Department, which needs to approve the state’s environmental review process in order to release the funds, according to one official.

Once approved, the task of spending the money falls to the Office of Energy Security (OES), which admits considerable delay in administering the funds because of the holdup in the Energy Department. And while potential solar customers wait to find out of they will get solar energy rebates, companies like Innovative Power Systems, a St. Paul-based design-build solar energy firm, lose money.

Ralph Jacobsen, owner of Innovative Power Systems, has revamped his warehouse to hold four times as much product and doubled the workforce, to 18 employees, in preparation for what was to have been a Minnesota solar boom this year.

But Jacobsen, a North American Board of Certified Energy Practitioners (NABCEP)-certified installer, admits that it was a case of too much, too soon, saying his company could have installed four times as many solar photovoltaic systems as it did this past year if stimulus funds had been available.

Innovative Power Systems is one of the Midwest’s largest installers of solar, wind, and geothermal alternative energy systems, and Jacobsen’s NABCEP certification makes him one of the few solar installers in Minnesota and Wisconsin able to claim the distinction. Jacobsen is also a board member of the Minnesota Renewable Energy Society and the President of the Minnesota Solar Energy Industries Association (MnSEIA).

In his role as installer extraordinaire, Jacobsen is working with government officials, energy regulators and state utilities to craft the next generation of renewable energy rules and targets. His recent conversation with Democratic Minnesota Rep. Amy Klobuchar, who was on a “green” energy tour of Minnesota at the time, was an attempt to ferret out the reason why the Department of Energy has stalled the stimulus.

Klobuchar agreed that the delay is unreasonable, and that more federal investment will be needed if Minnesota, and the nation, is to compete on a level playing field with foreign manufacturers, particularly in the area of solar photovoltaic panel manufacture.

Minnesota, the northernmost state in the nation with the exception of Alaska, and a seemingly unlikely place for solar energy, nonetheless has a fair complement of alternative energy manufacturers, including 3M, Red Rock Energy and Elk River-based Solar Attic, Inc., which makes solar pool heaters.

It also has at least 40 licensed alternative energy installers and dealers, and boasts of six organizations that advocate for solar energy, including Fresh Energy, Great Lakes Renewable Energy Association (Great Lakes SEIA), Minnesota Power SolarSense Program, Minnesota Renewable Energy Society, and Solar Minnesota.

What it doesn’t have is the stimulus funding necessary to encourage homeowners and businesses to go solar, and Klobuchar – a co-sponsor of the American Renewable Energy Act – is on the warpath to get the funds released.

As Klobuchar notes, funding – along with uniform standards for manufacturing, installation, permitting and financing – are all that’s needed to make American manufacturers competitive and Americans fully vested in clean, renewable solar energy.