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COVID-19 Stimulus Bill Includes Key Renewable Energy Tax Credits

The US stimulus bill passed into law yesterday includes several key extensions and additions to the tax credits available for renewable energy. The bill had been agreed to by Congress early last week and was signed into law by the president last night.

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Seeing Beyond the Wall of Capital

In the United States, despite the continued spread of COVID-19 and the uneven approach to reopening, where that is even occurring, deals in the renewable energy sector are happening.

In a recent article for Project Finance International, Chris Gladbach and Seth Doughty discussed the state of the US market for renewable power projects, including how investments (and investment styles) have changed, new technologies and more.

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Republished with permission from Refinitiv Project Finance International.




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Five Takeaways: An In-Depth Look at the Federal Legislative Game Plan to Support Renewables

On Thursday May 14, McDermott was joined by Gregory Wetstone, president and chief executive officer of the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE) to discuss the latest market updates on the severe disruption and uncertainty brought on the renewables industry by COVID-19.

Five takeaways from this week’s webinar:

      1. There is no clear insight yet into what a congressional relief package regarding renewable energy might look like, despite the fact that congress is discussing its fifth COVID-19-related response bill.
      2. Even though the outlook was already pessimistic, clean energy job loss has been worse than expected; there has been a loss of 94,000 jobs in the renewable sector between March and April and 600,000 additional unemployment claims across the clean energy sector.
      3. Renewables have a great potential to continue to be part of the nation’s economic recovery; two of the fastest growing job categories in the nation have been wind turbine technicians and solar panel installer.
      4. Senior Department of Energy officials have reassured that the recent bulk power executive order is a continuation of existing policies regarding transmission corridors and is not targeted at renewables, which are recognized as valuable for national security. See the Office of Electricity’s Q&A and contact email for a response to President Trump’s signed Executive Order, “Securing the United States Bulk-Power System” and join McDermott on May 21 for a legal analysis of the EO.
      5. The commerce department is undertaking an investigation which could lead to the imposition of additional tariffs, particularly in regards to transformers; the timing for these tariffs (if enacted) is likely right before the election.

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Six Takeaways: Shifting Market Dynamics in Corporate PPAs


On Thursday, May 7, McDermott Partners Ed Zaelke and Carl Fleming were joined by Christen Blum, head of the Renewable & Analytics Advisory practices at Edison Energy, to hear her thoughts on the current effects of COVID-19 on the corporate power purchase agreement (PPA) market.

Below are six takeaways from this week’s webinar:

    1. Despite COVID-19, there is still a strong appetite for corporate renewable procurement: market leaders (such as tech, pharma, and food and beverage companies) have been less impacted by COVID-19 and remain interested in renewable procurement. On the other hand, companies that have been hit the hardest by COVID-19 (such as services and hospitality businesses) have traditionally demonstrated limited interest in renewables; but industrial companies have seen the largest effect of COVID-19—they remain interested in renewables, but are delaying their procurement as they focus on their core business.

    2. Although the trend for buyer-friendly PPA terms remains strong, the market has seen a recent uptick in prices over 2019 such that they no longer remain as buyer-friendly as they have been in the recent past, but the impact of COVID-19 on these prices remains to be seen.

    3. In order to maintain more competitive PPA prices, developers are employing a number of price mitigation strategies, including price collars, upside sharing and developers bearing more merchant risk.

    4. Most corporate buyers are less time-sensitive than more traditional buyers; as such near-term wind projects are often losing out on opportunities to cheaper solar projects which are coming online later.

    5. Force majeure terms have become a major emphasis in PPA negotiations now.

    6. The best advice for developers is to treat their relationships with corporate partners as a long-term partnership and to act accordingly in negotiations.

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Six Takeaways: How Utilities and IPPs Are Responding to COVID-19

On Thursday, April 30, McDermott was joined by Brett Kerr, vice president of external affairs at Calpine, Drew Murphy, senior vice president of strategy and corporate development at Edison International, and Andrew Campbell, director of regulatory support and planning at NiSource who shared their perspectives on how investor-owned utilities and independent power producers are managing the COVID-19 crisis.

Below are six takeaways from this week’s webinar:

      1. As businesses go back to work, it is essential that they carefully plan for a new normal, including consideration of travel restrictions, acquisition of personal protective equipment, maintaining social distancing of employees and contractors, and compliance with new rules and regulations.
      2. Utilities have been and will continue to optimize their maintenance schedules to balance safety and reliability concerns considering the essential nature of electricity and risks potentially associated with deferred maintenance.
      3. Although it is too soon to see the permanent effects of COVID-19, there has been a five to seven percent reduction in weather-normalized demand: this includes both an increase in residential demand and a larger reduction in commercial and industrial demand.
      4. Utilities are watching cash flow more closely as more customers are either not paying or deferring payment, and as commercial and industrial customers reduce demand. In California, where revenues are decoupled from electricity demand, this should not affect total revenues, but may lead to reallocation of rates across customer classes.
      5. A number of large commercial and industrial corporate customers with renewable and sustainability commitments are talking about placing these commitments on hold or rethinking them as recessionary impacts become clearer.
      6. Drops in load and low natural gas prices could detrimentally impact the economics of new renewable projects seeking financing and prevent the projects from moving forward. However, as renewables often dominate interconnection queues, if some of these projects do not come online, prices could actually remain constant.

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