Financing Distributed Generation Solar Projects

Wednesday, April 17th: 1:15-2:45 PM

Moderator: Steve Remen, Executive VP of Business Development, groSolar

Panelists:

• George Ashton
• Chris Lord, the Managing Director of Capiron, Inc
• Rich Deutschmann, Senior Project Development Engineer at Ameresco
• Mark Crowdis, President of Reznick Think Energy

This panel includes a strong mix of solar professionals with significant leadership in the industry. The session will include open conversation and project examples regarding the current economic and regulatory factors for solar development and construction with particular focus on distributed generation projects in the 1mw – 15mw size range. Leading industry practitioners will review a variety of opportunities and challenges in key states and puerto rico. The participants will cover the following topics, offering their individual experience and expertise on each subject matter: increasing number of financing participants for distributed solar projects matching financial investor’s requirements to project characteristicsoperating in key srec states without availability of long-term SREC contracts importance of credit-worthy off takers for the electricity risks associated with the “solar shakeout” (bankruptcies, consolidations and warranty issues)how to reduce financing and other “soft” costs now that they are a larger proportion of the total project costs (equipment and construction costs continue to decrease) what about O & M and project performance after commercial operation commences?