The U.S. Department of Energy said Friday it closed loan guarantees for three large solar power plants and a massive rooftop solar project just hours before much of the funding for its loan guarantee program was set to expire.

The deals totaled about $4.7 billion and concluded a flurry of announcements by the Department, which said it has now issued loans and loan guarantees for $40 billion in clean energy projects. Several loan guarantees still in the pipeline, though, were not finalized in time and will now be fighting for a much smaller pot of funding.

The loan guarantees had to be finalized by Friday in order to access money from the 2009 economic-stimulus package. The Obama administration has been under intense pressure to choose wisely in issuing the remaining guarantees following the bankruptcy filing earlier this month of solar startup Solyndra Inc., which obtained a $535 million loan guarantee.

Two solar power plants backed by First Solar, Inc. (FSLR) received guarantees Friday. The company, which specializes in making solar panels, quickly announced it was selling the two facilities to new owners. First Solar will supply, build and manage the plants.

The Department also said it closed a loan guarantee to back part of the financing for a large, commercial rooftop solar-panel project that Energy Secretary Steven Chu said would be the largest rooftop solar deployment in U.S. history. The project is being developed by NRG Energy Inc. (NRG) and ProLogis Inc. (PLD), and will receive $1.4 billion in loans from Bank of America Corp.'s (BAC) Merrill Lynch unit, the largest financing package assembled for a U.S. rooftop solar-power project, the companies said.

Finally, the department said it had finalized a $1.2 billion loan guarantee for a SunPower Corp. (SPWRA, SPWRB) solar power plant in San Luis Obispo County, Calif.

Exelon Corp. (EXC) said it bought First Solar's 230-megawatt Antelope Valley solar plant, for which the U.S. is guaranteeing $646 million in loans. Construction has already begun at the site in northern Los Angeles County.

First Solar said it was also selling its 550-megawatt Desert Sunlight project to NextEra Energy, Inc. (NEE). The U.S. is guaranteeing part of $1.46 billion in loans for the power plant, which is located in Riverside County, Calif.

The loans and loan guarantee for NRG and Prologis will cover roughly half of a four-year, $2.6 billion plan to install solar panels on rooftops of ProLogis warehouses in 28 states. Altogether, the systems are expected to generate about 752 megawatts, enough to serve about 88,000 homes, according to the Energy Department. NRG has started construction on the first installation, a 15-megawatt rooftop solar generator in southern California that will provide electricity to Edison International's (EIX) electric utility.

Last week, the administration said two loan guarantees it had earlier offered separately to First Solar and SolarCity Corp. would not be done before the deadline. Together they would have covered more than $2.2 billion in loans to finance solar-power generating facilities.

Under scrutiny for Solyndra, which was the Department of Energy's first loan guarantee, Chu said the projects approved Friday would create jobs and provide models for future expansion of renewable electricity generation. "Innovation and investments in America's clean energy future are critical to our continued competiveness in the global market," he said in a statement.

-By Ryan Tracy, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-9245; ryan.tracy@dowjones.com

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