Project Finance NewsWire

February 2016

IN THIS ISSUE

Cost of capital: 2016 outlook

More than 2,000 people listened in January as a group of project finance industry veterans talked about the current cost of capital in the tax equity, bank debt, term loan B and project bond marke...

How to lose a banker in 10 minutes

by John Schuster with 32 Advisors, in Washington My experience as a lender in the project and structured finance space was that fewer than 10% of all projects presented for finance were sufficien...

New trends shaping the 2016 market

Two investment bankers, a consultant and a market analyst had a wide-ranging discussion at the Infocast power & money conference in New Orleans in January about new trends that are shaping the...

Central America: The next growth market?

Investment in South America is drying up as demand for commodities weakens, but because Central America is a commodity importer rather than exporter, its prospects look increasingly promising...

Environmental update

A new law enacted in December should streamline should environmental review and permitting of large infrastructure projects.


IN OTHER NEWS

Commercial PPAs

New commercial PPAs signed in 2015 reached 3,160 megawatts, more than double the year before.  Further growth is expected in 2016...

Consequences of demand-response win

US independent generators lost an effort before the US Supreme Court in late January to prevent demand response companies from bidding into power auctions on the same terms as independent generato...

Mexico hikes renewable electricity targets

Mexican renewable electricity targets have increased. A new law in December sets renewable electricity targets at 25% by 2018, 30% by 2021 and 35% by 2025. Mexican installed capacity was 25...

Tax equity deal struck down

A tax equity partnership sold state tax credits rather than allocated them to the tax equity partner, a US appeals court said in January.  The partnership had to report a $3...

Oregon BETC overhang

Oregon is considering how to deal with an overhang of unused BETC tax credits and is also investigating potential wrongdoing in the program...

Utility conversions into REITs

Conversions of US utilities into REITS may be less common after Congress acted in December. However, at least two conversions remain in the works in Texas...

MLP used to hold site leases

Master limited partnerships can be used to raise equity against portfolios of site leases for wind and solar projects and rooftop licenses for solar panels...

Adjusting tax credit carryforwards

Unused tax credits that are being carried forward can be adjusted by both the taxpayer and the IRS, even after the statute of limitations has run on a tax audit, the IRS said...

Hedges used to increase leverage

Hedges are being used to increase leverage in renewable energy financings by protecting against volatility in revenue due to fluctuating wind velocity, solar insolation or weather...

Minor memos

There is speculation that new partnership tax audit rules in the US may be the last straw that causes more states to start imposing an entity-level tax on partnerships as Texas and Tennessee have already done.