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.

Ep196: Inflation Reduction Act

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.

Ep195: What's New in the Market

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.

Ep194: New PJM Regulations and FERC Rules

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.

Ep193: DOE Loan Program Office Update

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.

Ep192: Biden's Executive Order

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.

Ep191: Recent Evolution of the Hedge Market

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.

Ep190: Climate Insurance and the Solar Industry

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.

Ep189: Proposed Tariffs Add to Uncertainty for Solar Develop

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.

Ep188: Energy Storage Investment Tax Credits

Bill Nussey

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.

Ep187: Freeing Energy with Bill Nussey

Currents is a podcast published by Norton Rose Fulbright that features in-depth discussions on the latest developments in project finance. The podcast is hosted by partner Todd Alexander, who interviews key business leaders and policy makers to investigate important trends affecting the energy and infrastructure space.

Best way for a quick update of the trends and issues in the energy business. Very nicely unpackaged by the very knowledgeable moderator.

Great insights

Great dialogue and insight from a reputable source, looking forward to upcoming topics.

Excellent

Currents

Richard Matsui

Richard Matsui, CEO of KwH Analytics, joins us to discuss the Solar Revenue Put, an innovative new financial product that may change the way many solar projects are financed. While the solar industry faces the potential impact of tariffs, we explore how this product can reduce project costs.

Ep23: Solar Revenue Puts with Richard Matsui, KwH Analytics

Live from the Wharton Energy Conference, Manish Kumar, managing director at The AES Corporation, Jackson Lehr, operating partner, infrastructure at Energy Impact Partners, Martin Torres, managing director at BlackRock and Peter Zhu, senior vice president at Macquarie Capital, sit down with Todd Alexander to cover financing renewable energy. The lively panel discusses everything from traditional PPAs and tax equity to the latest trends the panelists are seeing in the industry.

Ep78: Financing Renewable Energy: Present & Future

Alex Hinojosa, Calixto Mateos, Carlos Carranza, and Salvador Lopez of the North American Development Bank, join us to talk about why the bank was formed, the types of projects it finances, how it is governed and more.

Ep62: North American Development Bank

It is the start of a new year. Interest rates are headed up in the broader market. Economists are split on where the US and global economies are headed. Share prices on world bourses took a beating at the end of 2018. On January 11, we had a conversation among a group of project finance industry veterans about what to expect in the year ahead for tax equity, bank and term loan B debt and project bonds.

Ep47: Cost of Capital: 2019 Outlook

Scott Bank of First American Insurance sat down to discuss all things title insurance; in this episode we go from title insurance 101 and endorsements for project finance projects to how pricing breaks down and where he sees the insurer most often paying out.

Ep42: Title Insurance for Projects

Ethan Zindler, head of Americas at BloombergNEF, joins us to discuss their New Energy Outlook. We get into how the outlook differs from others in the market, some of the biggest and most surprising findings, the big shifts that are being seen in the US power sector, how costs of wind and solar are changing, and much more.

Ep71: BloombergNEF's New Energy Outlook

Bankruptcy lawyer Howard Seife sits down to talk about what happens when a power purchaser files for bankruptcy, using the recent Chapter 11 filing by First Energy Solutions as a case study. As we see more power projects financed based on projected cash flows from corporate PPAs, IPPs need to understand the credit risk presented by a potential bankruptcy of their counterparty.

Ep33: IPPs, PPAs, and Chapter 11

We sat down with Benoit Allehaut, director on the clean energy infrastructure team at Capital Dynamics, fresh off the heels of its acquisition and privatization of 8point3 Energy Partners LP. Benoit shares his views on how much appetite there is currently in the market for solar, the effects of the new solar tariffs, PPAs, the future of energy storage and more.

Ep32: Capital Dynamics' View on the Solar Market

Keith Martin, with Norton Rose Fulbright, joins us from Washington to discuss the likelihood that Congress will pass a tax extenders bill at year end and what tax changes of interest to the renewable energy industry are potentially in play.

Ep79: PTC Extension Legislation Update

Richard Matsui, co-founder and CEO of kWh Analytics, is back to give us an update on their popular resource, the Solar Lendscape. We discuss how many banks are currently active in solar, what that means for the market and how many are lending in the community solar segment.  From there we discuss the solar revenue put, trends in merchant risk and more.

Ep80: kWh Analytics' Solar Lendscape: 2020 Update

Ted Brandt, CEO and founder of Marathon Capital, joins us again to discuss his overall perspective on how active the M&amp;A market is for renewables right now and what he sees in the next six months. We discuss the shift in clients on the buy side, the market’s reaction to the influx of new products, how people are currently looking at the California market and more.

Ep67: The M&A Landscape for Renewables

As the community solar market continues to expand, our associate Ana Vucetic joins us to provide an update on the market and takes us through important recent changes in net metering rules across several key states.

Ep24: Net Metering and Community Solar Update

Jim Berger discusses back-leveraged loans from a legal perspective, going over the big picture of project structures as well as the most negotiated points in these transactions, the breakdown of benefits for sponsor members and tax equity investors, security packages, cash sweeps and more.

Ep34: Legal Perspective: Back-leveraged Loans

Richard Matsui, founder and CEO of kWh Analytics, is back to give us an update on their Solar Lendscape from the asset owners’ perspective. We get into their methodology, discuss the recent trend of refinancing and how refinancing is being built into models, strategic partnerships in the industry and more.

Ep70: Solar Refinancing and M&A

Tax equity for renewable energy was expected to be a US$15 billion market this year, and interest rates on bank debt had dropped to 125 to 137.5 basis points over LIBOR – before the coronavirus hit. Is financing still available for power and infrastructure projects? Has there been any change in availability or cost of tax equity, bank debt, B loans and project bonds? How have asset valuations been affected?Six key market participants talked about these questions and more. They are John C.S. Anderson, global head, corporate finance and infrastructure at Manulife, Ted Brandt, CEO of Marathon Capital, Jack Cargas, managing director at Bank of America, Ralph Cho, co-head of North American power and infrastructure at Investec Bank, Yale Henderson, managing director at J.P.Morgan and Max Lipkind, managing director and head of energy and power leveraged finance at Credit Suisse.

Tax equity for renewable energy was expected to be a US$15 billion market this year, and interest rates on bank debt had dropped to 125 to 137.5 basis points over LIBOR – before the coronavirus hit. Is financing still available for power and infrastructure projects? Has there been any change in availability or cost of tax equity, bank debt, B loans and project bonds? How have asset valuations been affected?<br>Six key market participants talked about these questions and more. They are John C.S. Anderson, global head, corporate finance and infrastructure at Manulife, Ted Brandt, CEO of Marathon Capital, Jack Cargas, managing director at Bank of America, Ralph Cho, co-head of North American power and infrastructure at Investec Bank, Yale Henderson, managing director at J.P.Morgan and Max Lipkind, managing director and head of energy and power leveraged finance at Credit Suisse.

Ep90: Taking Stock:Tax Equity, Debt and M&A

Ralph Cho and Mike Pantelogianis, Power &amp; Infrastructure Finance Co-heads for Investec in North America, join us to discuss quasi-merchant gas deals. They go into how the projects are set up, who takes the merchant exposure, different types of hedges available and more. .

Ep59: Quasi-merchant Gas Deals with Investec

David Burton, partner in our New York office, joins us to for an update on recent headlines in the tax market. We discuss the recent opinions of the US Court of Federal Claims in Bishop Hill Energy, LLC and California Ridge Wind Energy, LLC; what is driving the recent increase in repowerings from a tax perspective; and finally safe harboring panels: why people are doing it, how they are structuring their deals and more.

Ep66: Tax Market Update

Kat Gamache, senior counsel at Norton Rose Fulbright, joins us to discuss all things energy PPAs. We go into the biggest differences between traditional renewable PPAs and PPAs with storage, how pricing is handled, the types of batteries she is seeing in the market, lifespan terms in combined resource projects and more.

Ep58: Energy Storage PPAs

Sue Wang, Ben Koenigsberg and Keith Martin join us to discuss the impacts of coronavirus on the renewable energy industry. We discuss how coronavirus is affecting daily life in Wuhan, the effect on loans, what sponsors should do after receiving force majeure notices, what might happen to renewable energy projects that are up against deadlines to start or finish construction to qualify for tax credits, how the M&amp;A market is being affected, and more.

Ep87: Coronavirus and the Renewable Energy Industry

Michael Kleinberg, head of distributed energy resources and energy storage at DNV GL, joins us to talk all things energy storage. He shares an update on current technology trends of lithium ion, the cost environment, how projects are priced, key players on the manufacturing side and how these technologies are being deployed in the US. The residential market is awakening and Todd asks how much confidence can the project finance industry take from the numbers that the market is currently reporting.

Ep38: The Future of Energy Storage

The best self improvement podcast episodes. From improving productivity, to finding purpose in your life to what constitutes freedom, this topic is on anything and everything that can help people to improve their lives. Add episodes you're interested into your queue below!

Best Episodes on Self Improvement, Growth & Development

The best podcast episodes on global issues affecting everyone. Covering topics such as the #metoo movement, climate change, the impact of technology and some of the biggest global issues facing us right now. For anyone interested in learning more about the world, and some of the issues we're facing, pick an episode below and start listening! Add episodes you're interested into your queue below!