Project Finance NewsWire

August 2016

IN THIS ISSUE

Corporate PPAs
Utilities are working to squash net metering, but missing the larger picture...

Community solar financing issues
Community solar is a form of independent power project whose output is sold at retail rates. The financing community is just starting to get its arms around the risks...

New trends: View from the investment bankers
Five investment bankers had a wide-ranging discussion at the Chadbourne global energy and finance conference in early June about new trends in the market. The following is an edited transcript...

Merchant gas projects: How many more?
Merchant gas-fired power projects in ERCOT, PJM and ISO-New England helped carry the North American project finance market in 2015. Many banks are feeling flush with merchant gas risk in PJM...

Tax equity trends
Three tax equity investors and the lawyer who handles energy issues on the elite tax policy staff at the US Department of the Treasury talked at the annual ACORE/Euromoney Wall Street Renewable En...

The rooftop solar business model in transition
Where is the rooftop solar business model headed with business possibly shifting to direct sales, analysts pressing for positive cash flow and at least 10 states expected this year to revisit thei...

Environmental update
The US Environmental Protection Agency filled in details in late June about how it will reward generators in states that move early to reduce carbon emissions ahead of deadlines in the Clean Power...


IN OTHER NEWS

Hatch presses on tax basis issues
Treasury and the IRS continue taking flak from Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), chairman of the Senate tax-writing committee, about the Treasury cash grant program and tax basis issues for solar proj...

House GOP corporate tax reform plan
House Republicans released a tax plan in late June that they hope to put through the next Congress if Republicans remain in control. The Republicans enjoy a large majority in the House...

Municipal ownership of power plants
A municipal utility can own part of a power plant through a partnership with a private developer and issue tax-exempt bonds to buy its interest in the partnership, the IRS said...

Minnesota carbon statute invalidated
Minnesota cannot bar Minnesota utilities from signing new long-term-power contracts to buy electricity from fossil-fuel power plants in other states, a US appeals court said in June...

Court orders FERC to revisit pipeline charges
Gas-fired power plants that buy gas at the field and then pay a pipeline to transport it may get a break on transportation charges, at least by pipelines that are owned by partnerships...

Landfill tax equity deal dinged
Tax equity investors did not qualify for most of the tax credits they claimed on 24 landfill gas projects, the US Tax Court said. Two trusts formed to own the projects had very poor records...

Purchase money note not real debt
A purchase money note given to buy an interest in a partnership that owned geothermal projects was not a real debt, the US Tax Court said in late July. Lausanne Energy, Inc...

Electricity is tangible property
Oregon cannot tax part of the income earned from sales of electricity and gas that pass through the state on the way to customers in California...

Stored gas and property taxes
Oklahoma cannot collect property taxes on natural gas temporarily stored in the state by interstate pipelines while awaiting shipment to customers in other states, a state appeals court said in la...