Project Finance NewsWire

April 2016

IN THIS ISSUE

Learning from Venus
by John Schuster, with 32 Advisors in Washington Even 50 years into the women’s liberation movement and even with increasing numbers of women at the negotiating table, women are under-represented ...

Solar tax equity update
Four tax equity investors and the tax equity head for the largest solar rooftop company did a deep dive into this subject at an annual conference hosted by the Solar Energy Industries Association in New York.

Fund managers take note
Private equity funds that engage in active management of portfolio companies are troubled by the decision in a lawsuit involving Sun Capital Partners. The decision is troubling on two levels...

Stronger US focus on Africa
The US government took steps in February to ensure that the Power Africa initiative will last beyond when the Obama administration leaves office...

Environmental update
Attorneys general from Massachusetts and the US Virgin Islands announced in late March that they are joining ongoing efforts by New York and California to investigate possible inconsistencies...


IN OTHER NEWS

US inbound acquisitions
CFIUS reported to Congress in February that foreign companies submitted 147 proposed acquisitions of US companies to it for review in 2014...

India
India continues trying to collect taxes from foreigners holding investments in India through offshore holding companies when shares in the offshore companies are transferred or sold...

US solar companies
US solar companies are expected to install 16,000 megawatts of solar panels in 2016, up from 7,300 megawatts in 2015 ...

Coal retirements
Forty-one coal-fired power plants with a generating capacity of 5,600 megawatts are expected to be retired in 2016 in the United States, according to the US Energy Information Administration...

Wholesale electricity prices
Wholesale electricity prices were up 2.6% across the United States and Canada in 2015. The largest increases were a 10.9% increase in Florida and a 10.2% increase in WECC excluding California...

Greenhouse gas emissions
Greenhouse gas emissions remained flat globally for the second year in a row in 2015, according to the International Energy Agency. Emissions are decoupling from economic growth...

Oregon
Oregon moved to phase out use of coal for generating electricity and to increase the share of electricity that comes from renewable energy. The effort to bar use of coal may land in court...

Oklahoma
Oklahoma will go at least another year without scaling back production tax credits for wind or adding new incentives to use natural gas. The state faces a $1.3 billion budget shortfall in 2016...

Solar subsidies
Solar subsidies paid by a state to homeowners to encourage them to install rooftop solar systems do not have to be reported by the homeowners as income, the IRS said...

Placed-in-service date
A solar project will be considered in service for tax purposes even though the utility with which the project is interconnected has not finished the intertie to connect the project to the grid as ...

Warrants
Warrants are addressed by the IRS. Banks and tax equity investors sometimes ask for warrants in a project developer in exchange for financing one or more of its projects...

Anti-bribery efforts
Anti-bribery efforts are expected to step up in the United States. The US Department of Justice is hiring another 10 prosecutors for its unit that enforces the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act...

Minor memos
More than half of House Republicans have co-sponsored a bill to “blow up” the US tax code at the end of 2019 in order to force Congress to start over...