Currents

Keith Martin, David Burton and Hilary Lefko have a lively discussion about the Inflation Reduction Act’s effect on deals. Some parts of the Inflation Reduction Act that passed the Senate are retroactive to the start of 2022. Other parts apply only to projects that are placed in service after this year. The bill is expected to clear the House this week. It will affect the tax equity market. It will affect construction and equipment procurement contracts.

Keith Martin gives a lively update on what is new in the market. The tax equity market is wrestling with a series of issues tied to inflation and construction delays. Developers forced for the same reasons to renegotiate power contracts are drawing interesting lessons. Rising electricity prices are affecting the economics of making green hydrogen, but hydrogen is coming and may prove more disruptive than appeared even a year ago.

Bob Shapiro, partner in Norton Rose Fulbright’s Washington office, joins us to discuss the new regulations in PJM and FERC rules being considered. We discuss how PJM is addressing their backlog, an overview of the two interconnection proposals, who the big winners and losers are, how the FERC proposal differs from the PJM regulations and more.

Jigar Shah, Director of the Department of Energy's Loan Program Office, joins us to discuss the mission of the program and what it is working on right now. We talk about the types of deals that are relevant for the office, what Jigar views as the sweet spot in terms of size and debt for a project, how the pricing works, where he sees the renewable market going in the next five years and more.

Stefan Reisinger, partner Norton Rose Fulbright’s Washington office, joins us for a closer look at the Biden action yesterday to shield solar panels imported from Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand and Cambodia during the next two years from any anti-circumvention duties that the Commerce Department decides to impose. We discuss the current Commerce investigation, how the Biden order will affect imported panels, what it means for current financings and more.

Lee Taylor, CEO of REsurety, joins us to discuss the recent evolution of the hedge market due to the impacts of winter storm Uri. We get into the spectrum of hedging options before the storm, how each of those structures fared, how the hedging landscape has changed and more.

Jason Kaminsky, CEO of kWh Analytics, joins us to discuss the company’s $20M Series B fundraise and the emergence of climate insurance. We discuss what the fundraise means for the industry as a whole, why climate insurance hasn’t emerged yet and the challenges the insurance industry faces when insuring renewables, solutions he has seen on the insurance side, the partnerships that are happening in the industry, the improvement in modeling on the underwriting side and more.

Abigail Ross Hopper, president and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association, joins us to discuss what the potential anti-circumvention tariffs on cells and modules from Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia. We talk about why we are in the midst of an investigation, how long the Department of Commerce has to investigate and what it could mean for the industry, the percentage of panels that are sourced from these four countries, other significant concerns that Hopper has and more.

Keith Martin, partner at Norton Rose Fulbright in Washington, joins us to discuss investment tax credits (ITCs) for energy storage and provide an update on the current tax equity market. We get into how current ITCs apply to energy storage, what happens if you have a battery that is only partially charged by a renewables project, why an ITC for an energy storage project doesn’t work well with wind farms claiming PTCs, whether the storage and wind or solar projects have to have the same owner, what he expects to see happen with the Build Back Better bill, how the overall market is different in 2022 and much more.

Bill Nussey, founder and CEO of the Freeing Energy Project, joins us to discuss the shift to cleaner, cheaper energy. We discuss his new book, Freeing Energy, why he thinks local energy can be cheaper than electricity from the "big grid" and what the advantages are, the roles that natural gas, hydrogen and nuclear energy will play in the shift to cleaner energy, policies that can accelerate use of local energy, and more.

Sheldon Kimber, CEO and co-founder of Intersect Power, joins us to discuss the $2.6 billion financing facility that Intersect signed in November 2021 to finance a portfolio of late-stage solar and storage projects in California and Texas. We get into Intersect’s $600 million equity raise last year, Sheldon’s openness to merchant risk, the sacrifices that need to be made when the company structures these deals, where he sees the energy storage market going and more.

The year ahead looks like another strong year for financings, but with uncertainty around supply chains, inflation, potential tax law changes and import tariffs. The yield on the 10-year Treasury bond is up significantly so far in January, repeating a pattern early last year. The Federal Reserve is expected to start raising interest rates as early as March. Listen to a discussion about what to expect in the year ahead for tax equity, bank and term loan B debt and project bonds, led by Keith Martin from Norton Rose Fulbright, among John C.S. Anderson, global head of corporate finance and infrastructure at Manulife, Jack Cargas, managing director and head of originations on the tax equity desk at Bank of America, Ralph Cho, global co-head of the power and infrastructure group at Investec, Max Lipkind, managing director and head of Americas leveraged finance origination at Credit Suisse, and Rubiao Song, managing director and head of energy investments at JPMorgan.

Katie McClain, partner at Energize Ventures, joins us to discuss the company’s investment approach. We get into what it looks for in clean energy and climate tech companies, how its approach differs from other funds, how Katie’s policy background shapes her personal investing thesis, the way decarbonization goals are shaping the clean energy economy and much more.

Maria Klutey, president of Activate Renewables, joins us to discuss how the company’s business model maximizes the value of renewable real estate holdings. We get into the history and background of Activate, its competitive advantage, the advantage that comes with partnering with DESRI, the structures offered to landowners and developers, how much of a project’s capital stack it typically funds, challenges to the business moving forward and more.

Matt Harper, chief commercial officer at Invinity Energy Systems, joins us to explain vanadium flow batteries. We discuss the future of energy storage, how vanadium flow batteries differ from lithium-ion, what has held back vanadium flow so far, what’s next for Invinity and more.

Sheldon Kimber, CEO and co-founder of Intersect Power, joins us to discuss what he is seeing in the industry and talk about the company’s latest financing. We discuss Intersect’s interest in green hydrogen, how big of an impact tariffs are having on supply chain issues, the current tax equity market, Intersect’s $2.6B financing for construction and operations of a six-portfolio project, and more.

Maryann Johnson, senior managing director of property and energy claims at Beecher Carlson, Brian DiLuigi, senior vice president of alternative energy, and Alex Nephew, risk management and insurance advisor with Brown & Brown, join us to discuss the complexities of insuring renewables. We discuss the different capabilities Beecher Carlson and Brown & Brown have to help renewable energy companies, the types of coverage the insurance market has in place for solar and other renewables, some of the differences within the renewables industry relating to coverage and cost for asset owners, what has been happening in regard to losses and claims due to recent severe weather events, the differences relating to coverage and cost for solar asset owners, risk factors that dictate appetite and cost for carriers, what developers and asset owners should be doing to minimize their risk and cost, and more.

Jackson Moore, product director at DNV for renewable energy software, joins us to discuss DNV's solar energy validation work and to address questions about how and why solar assets may underperform. We discuss factors that may affect the likelihood that a project will satisfy investor expectations, whether any of the common causes of underperformance may be remediable during operation, how underperformance risk is being addressed in project finance transactions and more.

Sam Porter and Mike Sloan, partners at Synergetic, join us to discuss green energy infrastructure. We go over Synergetic’s mission to deliver zero-carbon energy, the current infrastructure issues that it has identified, how fast the energy transition can happen, what has been learned from Texas’ proactive electric transmission plan (CREZ), what they expect from the infrastructure bill and more.

Michael Edesess, managing partner, and Pascal Schoneburg, founder of M1K, join us to talk about sustainable finance. We discuss what sustainable finance is, the financial instruments included in it, whether sustainable finance has been embraced by corporations, the benefits of a sustainable investment and more.