Sol Systems to Speak at Novogradac’s Financing Renewable Energy Conference in San Francisco
The Financing Renewable Energy Conference will be held in San Francisco, California.
Sol Systems CEO Yuri Horwitz and Dan Yonkin, Director of Tax Equity, will be attending the upcoming Novogradac Financing Renewable Energy Conference in San Francisco. The event will be held April 24-25th and will include dozens of expert speakers and hundreds of renewable finance professionals. Yuri, our CEO and co-founder, will be featured on Wednesday the 24th in a panel titled “Searching for the Lowest Cost of Capital,” sharing his expertise on securing investment in the growing and complex green energy industry. Yuri will join executives from Deutsche Bank, Clean Power Finance, and other financing institutions to discuss the potential and viability of debt financing through asset-backed securities, master limited partnerships and even a federal production tax credit for solar energy.
Sol Systems offers investors a diverse range of opportunities to deploy capital in the renewable energy asset class. Our team originates project opportunities from our national network, conducts thorough due diligence of each projects, structures and negotiates complex tax transactions, and manages the asset post-closing to maximize each project’s cash and tax benefits.
Ohio Senator Reintroduces Legislation to Repeal Renewable Portfolio Standard
The Ohio SREC market in 2013 is projected to be two times oversupplied with an expected 120,000 SRECs to be issued in 2013 compared to a demand of only 60,000 SRECs.
In 2012, Ohio Senator Kris Jordan introduced a bill to repeal Ohio’s Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard. After the bill failed to advance in the 2012 session, Senator Jordan introduced a similar bill, Senate Bill (SB) 34, in February 2013. The bill has been referred to the Public Utilities Committee, but a hearing has yet to be scheduled.
If passed, SB 34 would amend several sections of the state’s Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard (RPS). Most importantly, SB 34 would repeal the requirement that utilities must reach a goal of 25% of electricity sales from renewable and advanced energy resources by 2025. In effect, this would remove the 0.5% solar carve-out and terminate the necessity for a solar renewable energy credit (SREC) market in Ohio, as well as seriously affect adjacent states that sell their SRECs into Ohio’s borders.
Sol Systems Speaks at the American Solar Energy Society Conference in Baltimore
Sol Systems CFO and co-founder, George Ashton, will be attending SOLAR 2013, an annual conference held by the American Solar Energy Society. This is the 42nd installment of the event, and will be held April 16-20 at the Baltimore Convention Center. George will be participating in a 90-minute panel discussion titled “Financing DG Projects,” where he will speak alongside Rich Deutschmann of Ameresco, Chris Lord of Capiron, and Steve Remen of GroSolar. The panel will be held on Wednesday, April 17th, from 1 PM until 2:30 PM and will focus on funding distributed generation installations.
April Solar Project Finance Statistics
Every month, Sol Systems distributes a newsletter, the Sol Systems Project Finance Journal, to our community of solar developers and investors. The journal features solar finance statistics, trends, industry news, and SREC market information. We gather this information from our relationships and experience aggregating SRECs and financing commercial and utility scale solar projects.
We have included excerpts from our April Project Finance Journal below. If you have any questions about this information, wish to receive our monthly newsletter via email, or have a solar project in need of financing, please contact our team at info@solmarket.com. We would love to hear from you.
Project Finance Statistics
Characteristics of “Hot Projects”
Capacity: 300 KW – 3.6 MW
Average Capacity: 1,293 KW
Competitive all-in costs range currently range between $2.00-3.00 *
- <500 kW: $2.57-3.00/ Watt
- 500 kW – 2 MW: $2.85-3.00/ Watt
- >2 MW: $2.00-2.62/ Watt
*Does not include Hawaii projects where competitive costs are currently ~ $4.25/watt
Legislation Introduced in 2013 to Increase the Pennsylvania Solar Carve-Out
On February 25, 2013, Representative Greg Vitali introduced House Bill (HB) 100 to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, legislation that would amend the Pennsylvania Alternative Energy Portfolio Standards. HB 100 was later referred to the House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee, and hearing has not yet been scheduled. If passed, HB 100 would take steps to revive the suffering PA SREC market. Similar legislation (HB 1580 and SB 1350) was introduced to the PA legislature in 2012; however, neither of these bills made significant progress in the General Assembly.
The original Pennsylvania Alternative Energy Portfolio Standards Act currently requires Pennsylvania’s electric utilities to obtain eight percent of their power from renewable sources by 2021, and of that eight percent, 0.5 percent of their power must be generated by solar energy systems.
Sol Systems to Host Webinar: “Quarterly SREC Roundup: Financing Projects with SRECs”
As SREC prices continue to rise in Washington, DC, how can developers and investors gain access to this promising market? How will the DOER’s potential rule changes affect the Massachusetts SREC market? Will Delaware’s Procurement Program provide relief to their weakened SREC market?
Join our SREC portfolio management team, George Ashton and Amber Rivera, on Wednesday, April 3 at 12:30 PM ET as they discuss the latest market trends in the various SREC states, as well as strategies for financing projects with SRECs. This quarter’s update will include important regulatory changes and price fluctuations in the various SREC markets, including DC, Delaware, and Massachusetts.
Space is limited, so register today.
Potential Changes to Hawaii’s 35% State Tax Credit
New temporary rules will place restrictions on the ability of developers in Hawaii to claim the 35% state tax credit. The new rules, issued by the Department of Taxation in November of 2012, will be in effect for no longer than 18 months, starting for systems installed on January 1st, 2013 and after. The Hawaiian House of Representatives also recently moved HB 497 to the Senate, a proposal to permanently decrease the tax credit level given to renewable energy developers.
The new structure, under the temporary rules, places a minimum on kilowatt output of PV systems, referred to in the legislation as “other solar systems” or those projects neither for solar thermal nor from wind energy. Single-family residential properties have a minimum of 5 KW per system, multi-family residential properties have a minimum of .360 KW per unit per system, and commercial properties’ systems must have a capacity of 1MW in order to receive the current 35% of costs income tax credit. There is also a cap of $5,000 of credit for residences and $500,000 for commercial enterprises.
Future of Massachusetts Solar – After the 400 MW Program Cap
Sol Systems met with solar developers, investors, and policymakers to discuss potential changes to the Massachusetts SREC market.
Investors, developers, SREC aggregators, and other stakeholders in the Massachusetts solar market gathered at the State House today for meetings relating to the state’s RPS Solar Carve-Out Program. The Department of Energy Resources (DOER) sought public comment for two pivotal changes to the solar policy regime currently underway—the establishment of a post-400 MW solar program, and the ongoing rulemaking to address changes to regulation 225 CMR 14.00.
Policymakers noted the success of the Solar Carve-Out program in “aggressively growing solar installation and businesses in Massachusetts”, pointing to the rapid pace at which the state has neared Governor Deval Patrick’s goal of 250 megawatts of solar capacity by 2017. The latest DOER data from this month shows nearly 215 megawatts of solar capacity qualifying for the Solar Carve-Out Program, 195 megawatts of which is already operational. With this pace of growth, everyone is asking, “What will happen to incentives for solar development once current capacity meets the 400 megawatt cap of the Solar Carve-Out Program?”
2013 Solar Industry Trends: A Playbook for Tax Credit Investors
Sol Systems’ CEO, Yuri Horwitz, and Dan Yonkin, Director of Tax Equity, were published in the March 2013 issue of the Novogradac Journal of Tax Credits.
Sol Systems CEO Yuri Horwitz and Director of Tax Equity, Dan Yonkin, were recently published in the Novogradac Journal of Tax Credits.
2013 Solar Industry Trends: A Playbook for Tax Credit Investors
By Dan Yonkin and Yuri Horwitz, Sol Systems
The solar industry continues to promise potential tax-driven investors a growing and stable asset class in which to deploy their capital. However, for new entrants – or even experienced players – continued success in 2013 and beyond requires an intimate understanding of the solar industry and market’s changing topography.
March Solar Project Finance Statistics
Every month, Sol Systems distributes a newsletter, the Sol Systems Project Finance Journal, to our community of solar developers and investors. The journal features solar finance statistics, trends, industry news, and SREC market information. We gather this information from our relationships and experience aggregating SRECs and financing commercial and utility scale solar projects.
We have included excerpts from our March Project Finance Journal below. If you have any questions about this information, wish to receive our monthly newsletter via email, or have a solar project in need of seeking financing, please contact our team at info@solmarket.com. We would love to hear from you.