… At the end of 2010, Jifan Gao, Trina Solar’s founder and chairman, wondered how his company could expand its presence in the United States market. In the previous five … to the United States? These strategic questions had to be answered in an environment with two major sources of uncertainty. First, there were considerable political risks. The … The implications of grid parity to the solar industry were, as yet, not well understood. Areas of Focus Equity and Justice Sustainable Finance and ESG Clean Energy Access the …
… project received a significant boost. While the proposed wind farm was located in an area with abundant wind resources, absent a creditworthy off-taker the project would not have been able to line up financing. With Walmart de … the transmission rates for renewable energy and had constructed a few projects of its own. However, there were no special feed-in-tariffs for renewable energy and only a few tax …
… mitigants like loan loss reserve funds, interest rate buy-downs, subordinated debt, or warehousing facilities, the Green Bank lowered the cost of capital for consumers and … swept $16.3 million annually from the Connecticut Green Bank’s budget over the following two years. In 2017, nearly 90% of the Connecticut Green Bank's operating funds came from public sources. How then could the Green Bank, whose mission rested on building trust, both insulate itself …
… growers to continue their livelihoods, but also helped stabilize the region's food supply. However, many small landholders were priced out of the market for crop insurance. Unlike the … expertise and decades of weather-related data to estimate the frequency of major weather events. It was widely acknowledged that climate change was likely to increase the frequency … insurance business in the rest of Africa. The company faced considerable challenges in this area as crop insurance had low penetration in other parts of Africa. Company officials …
… to bring much-needed clean-energy finance into the state market. This case study describes how this bank set up the Efficient Buildings Fund (EBF) and is iteratively improving it. … Finance Agency (CWFA). Three other programs—Commercial Property-Assessed Clean Energy (C-PACE), Residential Property-Assessed Clean Energy (R-PACE), and the Brownfield Revolving … It accomplished this by publicizing a widely-distributed RFP. All of these projects are net cash flow-positive, meaning they generate more savings than the total cost of the …
… buildings emit and reduce their operating costs. While these energy-efficiency upgrades are often cash-flow-positive with the right loans, they have failed to penetrate the market … Financial institutions are reluctant to lend when any claim that they might make in the event of a default is junior to the property mortgage holder. This is why the Environmental … an important role. The EUA is a deal structure modeled on property-assessed clean energy (PACE) in the United States. It allows loans for building upgrades to be paid back via a …
… in India and an example for the entire developing world. The road to SELCO’s success, however, has not always been smooth. Hande cofounded SELCO (with Neville Williams) in 1995 … ill-fated attempt to scale-up during the early 2000s, SELCO created a franchised dealer network, seriously hurting the company financially and deviating from its mission to help the … to repay the capital expenses associated with installing solar equipment. However, SELCO’s careful process of needs assessment, design, financing, and service was time-consuming and …
… the market for home energy-efficiency upgrades. In New York State, those upgrades face two key barriers to widespread adoption. The first barrier is that a whole-home upgrade is a … or take out loans to spread the cost over time. Second, while large-scale investors are increasingly familiar with residential energy-efficiency financing, they don’t use … deployment of debt financing to help stand up large-scale generation projects, this case shows how a similar structure can be used for residential energy efficiency. Sustainable …
… the companies to withdraw their pledge. And the 2015 fire season was the worst in nearly two decades, as would-be oil palm growers set fire to rainforests and peatlands to clear … Indonesia had established infrastructure to mill, refine, and export the substance. However, oil palm cultivation had created social tensions as many rural inhabitants claimed … many environmentalists believed that the agreement represented a breakthrough. The events of 2015 suggested otherwise, forcing businesses, NGOs and sympathetic government …
… like Virginia leveraged this program to accomplish energy efficiency goals. When evaluating how to use Virginia’s QECB allocation, decision makers considered the increased flexibility of Green Community Programs (GCPs) relative to traditional QECBs and “qualified” projects. GCPs can issue bonds … a maximum of 30% of allocations can be issued for private projects. In addition, GCPs are not subject to the 20% energy-reduction requirement. This broad scope and …