M ONTY REVIEW - Clean Energy · PDF filein countries including Germany, Spain, Austria,...
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1 T he European Investment Bank approved its largest renewable energy finance loan of the year in October, agreeing to provide a Eur500 million ($688 million) financing package for three separate German offshore wind grid connections. The financing will support the construction and maintenance of the 576 MW HelWin1, 864 MW SylWin1 and 800 MW DolWin1 grid connections, all three of which are currently being built out by TenneT TSO, the German subsidiary of Netherlands-based transmission system operator TenneT. The loan confirmed the pivotal role the EIB and other multilateral finance institutions continue to play in financing large-scale European renewable energy infrastructure projects. In addition, the EIB is one of the main sources of capital for other green investments such as corporate and municipal energy efficiency improvements and cutting edge research and development. According to Clean Energy Pipeline data, the EIB has provided $2.65 billion of clean energy financing in 2013 to date and participated in 22 transactions. The bank has supported projects throughout Europe in countries including Germany, Spain, Austria, Ireland, Portugal, the UK and France. The EIB’s largest deal of the year, aside from the German offshore wind grid loans, was the Eur300 million ($396 million) loan it provided to Portuguese developer ENEOP Eolicas de Portugal in February to finance a 296 MW wind portfolio. The German transaction was the EIB’s second financing of a renewable grid infrastructure project this year, following its approval of a 12-year Eur115 million ($150 million) loan to Brazilian network operator Elektro Eletricidade e Serviços SA, the only financing it has executed for a non- European asset in 2013. Grid infrastructure improvements to enhance renewables integration are an EIB sIGnals nEw fOcus On GrId InfrastructurE wIth Eur500 mIllIOn GErman OffshOrE wInd lOan cOntEnts Issue #20 november 2013 Editorial review.................................1 { EIB signals new focus on grid infrastructure with Eur500 million German offshore wind loan data..................................................3 Interviews & analysis.........................5 { Green Investment Bank could raise project equity fund in future { Solar investor JCM Capital to raise $150 million equity fund in 2014 { IFC closes in on $300 million of MENA renewables investment this year { US investment firm aims to invest $250 million in renewables over next three years { South African commercial banks’ appetite for African renewables rises in wake of REIPPPP { Allied Irish Banks earmarks Eur300 million to Eur400 million for renewables { Good Energy will need to source up to £165 million by 2016 for 110 MW pipeline { CSP start-up shifts focus to MENA oil and water markets { Solar developer Recurrent Energy to expand into Texas, Australia { UK solar can match Hinkley nuclear production in two years with right support, says leading developer { Radian targets gap in management services market for secondary US solar assets { Xcel Energy considers taking equity in $2.85 billion of planned wind power additions { First US wind leasing company targets $500 million capital raise { Eneco, Mitsubishi Corporation to finance 129 MW Netherlands offshore wind farm on balance sheets { Celtic Array’s 2.2 GW Rhiannon Wind Farm to come online in 500 MW stages { Clean energy investment falls to four-year low in 3Q13 { Global waste conversion company targets strategic technology acquisitions { Solar Grid Storage to raise $50 million fund in next 12 months { ChargePoint to explore external financing for next EV charging lease fund { Elevance targets $200 million debt, equity raise to finance new biorefineries headlines.......................................33 Events............................................35 ronan murphy Editor Clean Energy Pipeline A division of VB/Research Ltd. Centaur Media plc WELLS POINT 79 Wells Street London, W1T 3QN +44 (0) 207 251 8000 (EMEA) +1 202 386 6715 (Americas) managing Editor: Estelle Lloyd Editor: Ronan Murphy Production Editor: Tom Naylor sales director: Sonja van Linden Tol www.cleanenergypipeline.com subscription enquiries: [email protected] Monthly Clean Energy Investment Analysis & News Report MONTHLY REVIEW www.cleanenergypipeline.com
Transcript of M ONTY REVIEW - Clean Energy · PDF filein countries including Germany, Spain, Austria,...
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The European Investment Bank approved its largest renewable energy finance loan of the year in
October, agreeing to provide a Eur500 million ($688 million) financing package for three separate German offshore wind grid connections.
The financing will support the construction and maintenance of the 576 MW HelWin1, 864 MW SylWin1 and 800 MW DolWin1 grid connections, all three of which are currently being built out by TenneT TSO, the German subsidiary of Netherlands-based transmission system operator TenneT.
The loan confirmed the pivotal role the EIB and other multilateral finance institutions continue to play in financing large-scale European renewable energy infrastructure projects. In addition, the EIB is one of the main sources of capital for other green investments such as corporate and municipal energy efficiency improvements and cutting edge research and development.
According to Clean Energy Pipeline data, the EIB has provided $2.65 billion of clean energy financing in 2013 to date and participated in 22 transactions. The bank has supported projects throughout Europe in countries including Germany, Spain, Austria, Ireland, Portugal, the UK and France.
The EIB’s largest deal of the year, aside from the German offshore wind grid loans,
was the Eur300 million ($396 million) loan it provided to Portuguese developer ENEOP Eolicas de Portugal in February to finance a 296 MW wind portfolio.
The German transaction was the EIB’s second financing of a renewable grid infrastructure project this year, following its approval of a 12-year Eur115 million ($150 million) loan to Brazilian network operator Elektro Eletricidade e Serviços SA, the only financing it has executed for a non-European asset in 2013.
Grid infrastructure improvements to enhance renewables integration are an
EIB sIGnals nEw fOcus On GrId InfrastructurE wIth Eur500 mIllIOn GErman OffshOrE wInd lOan
cOntEntsIssue #20 november 2013
Editorial review.................................1 { EIB signals new focus on grid infrastructure with
Eur500 million German offshore wind loan
data..................................................3
Interviews & analysis.........................5 { Green Investment Bank could raise project equity
fund in future
{ Solar investor JCM Capital to raise $150 million equity fund in 2014
{ IFC closes in on $300 million of MENA renewables investment this year
{ US investment firm aims to invest $250 million in renewables over next three years
{ South African commercial banks’ appetite for African renewables rises in wake of REIPPPP
{ Allied Irish Banks earmarks Eur300 million to Eur400 million for renewables
{ Good Energy will need to source up to £165 million by 2016 for 110 MW pipeline
{ CSP start-up shifts focus to MENA oil and water markets
{ Solar developer Recurrent Energy to expand into Texas, Australia
{ UK solar can match Hinkley nuclear production in two years with right support, says leading developer
{ Radian targets gap in management services market for secondary US solar assets
{ Xcel Energy considers taking equity in $2.85 billion of planned wind power additions
{ First US wind leasing company targets $500 million capital raise
{ Eneco, Mitsubishi Corporation to finance 129 MW Netherlands offshore wind farm on balance sheets
{ Celtic Array’s 2.2 GW Rhiannon Wind Farm to come online in 500 MW stages
{ Clean energy investment falls to four-year low in 3Q13
{ Global waste conversion company targets strategic technology acquisitions
{ Solar Grid Storage to raise $50 million fund in next 12 months
{ ChargePoint to explore external financing for next EV charging lease fund
{ Elevance targets $200 million debt, equity raise to finance new biorefineries
headlines.......................................33
Events............................................35
ronan murphy
Editor
Clean Energy PipelineA division of VB/Research Ltd.Centaur Media plcWELLS POINT79 Wells StreetLondon, W1T 3QN
+44 (0) 207 251 8000 (EMEA)+1 202 386 6715 (Americas)
managing Editor: Estelle LloydEditor: Ronan MurphyProduction Editor: Tom Naylorsales director: Sonja van Linden Tol
www.cleanenergypipeline.com
subscription enquiries: [email protected]
Monthly Clean Energy Investment Analysis & News Report
MoNthly REvIEwwww.cleanenergypipeline.com
2
raised by Swedish green IT start-up Flexenclosure AB and a Series B round closed by Hungarian water treatment technology developer Organica Water.
masdar london array refinancing offers succour to uK offshore wind sector as utilities retreat
Abu Dhabi-based energy group Masdar’s refinancing in October of its 20% stake in London Array, the world’s largest offshore wind farm, was warmly welcomed by the UK offshore wind sector. It was the first project finance deal closed for a UK offshore wind farm for almost ten months.
Masdar closed a 12 year limited-recourse project finance package of up to £266 million for its stake in the 630 MW project. The financing was supported by five international lenders including the state-funded UK Green Investment Bank (GIB), which provided £58.6 million of debt. The other participants were The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd., KFW-IPEX Bank, Siemens Bank GmbH and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation.
The Masdar transaction was the first project finance deal closed for a UK offshore wind farm since December 2012, when OPW, a joint venture between Dutch pension fund PGGM and clean energy investor Ampere Equity Fund, refinanced its 24.8% stake in the 367 MW Walney project through a seven-year, £224 million senior debt package.
The only other two UK offshore wind financing deals completed since the beginning of 2012 were the £425 million project debt package closed in June 2012 for the 270 MW Lincs project and Japanese trading group Marubeni’s
estimated £158 million refinancing of its 49.9% stake in the 172 MW Gunfleet Sands wind farm.
A striking aspect of all these transactions is that they are all either refinancing or, in the case of Lincs, a financing once construction had been underway for two years since 2010. Availability of construction-stage financing of UK projects from commercial banks and institutional investors is still limited, which means utilities are still essential to getting projects off the ground.
Worryingly, there were signs last month that continuing uncertainty surrounding UK energy policy is compounding the difficulties utilities are already facing due to capital constraints and their need to reduce debt.
SSE said it will not make any investment decisions for new UK offshore wind farms until 2015 due to policy uncertainty. It directly cited Labour leader Ed Miliband’s pledge to freeze energy prices for 20 months if he is elected, but the utility has previously also warned that it is not confident the new contracts for difference subsidy is adequate to incentivise offshore wind investment.
With utilities increasingly reluctant to commit large sums to offshore wind projects, the ability for other investors such as Masdar and OPW to refinance is essential. It allows existing sector participants to recycle capital for new offshore wind projects and serves to lower the perception of risk among the wider international and institutional investment community.
Ronan Murphy Editor
increasingly important focal point for the EIB going forward. In an interview with Clean Energy Pipeline last week, the bank’s Director of Energy Cheryl Fisher explained their strategy further: “The grid investments are a core part of our new [strategy]. We’re looking to finance the [renewables] strengthening projects where they’re needed because, for example, in Germany a large part of the renewable energy is in the north of the country and the nuclear power stations are in the south and they’re going to be switched off, so you need to strengthen those internal links between countries in order to get better distribution for renewable energy.”
Ifc expands mEna ambitions, raises VC/PE investment
World Bank unit the International Finance Corporation expanded in October its own investment objectives in Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. Its MENA Director Mouayed Makhlouf told Clean Energy Pipeline that the organisation plans to increase its clean energy investment in the region beyond its 2013 target of $300 million to between $500 million and $1 billion per year in the future.
The IFC is yet to complete a deal in these geographies this year, but is in the advanced stages of negotiations to finance projects in Jordan and Pakistan. Clean Energy Pipeline data shows that the IFC has provided $316.5 million of project finance for renewable energy assets in 2013 so far, spread across six projects. The organisation has been most active in Chile, where it has approved loans of $65 million and $47 million respectively to two solar farms. It has also financed solar projects in India and Spain and wind farms in Croatia and South Africa.
In addition to project finance, the IFC has been heavily active in venture capital and private equity investment this year, bridging the gap left by traditional early-stage investors to support technologies that can be deployed in emerging countries. Thus far it has invested in nine companies in deals with a combined value of $229 million.
The largest private equity investment in which the IFC participated this year was a $100 million development capital funding for Caribbean clean power infrastructure investor InterEnergy Holding. Other notable deals included a $24 million equity round
Editorial review
Source: London Array Limited
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data
dataVC/PE, M&A, Project / Asset Finance and Public Markets transactions from Clean Energy Pipeline’s premium databases
Venture capital & Private Equity101 transactions tracked totalling $5.3 billion - top 20 transactions by value displayed here
mergers & acquisitions79 transactions tracked totalling $6.2 billion - top 20 transactions by value displayed here
date Company deal stagedeal value (usd mm)
sector
02/10/2013 DONG Energy A/S Minority Stake 1996.4 Wind
15/10/2013 Siemens Water Technologies Corp. PE - Buyout 863.5 Water & Waste Water Treatment
17/10/2013 Vivint Solar PE - Development Capital 540.0 Solar
30/10/2013 Same Time Holdings Ltd. PIPE 232.2 Solar
14/10/2013 Huaneng Renewables Corp. Ltd. PIPE 203.5 Solar/Wind
07/10/2013 Solar plants (83MW) - East Anglia, south and south wes... PE - Buyout 153.7 Solar
30/10/2013 Suntech Power Holdings Co. Ltd PIPE 150.0 Solar
01/10/2013 Aegea Saneamento e Participações SA PE - Development Capital 133.8 Water & Waste Water Treatment
23/10/2013 Beijing Jingneng Clean Energy Co. Ltd. PIPE 116.8 Wind
18/10/2013 Amyris Inc. (f.k.a. Amyris Biotechnologies Inc.) PIPE 110.0 Advanced Materials & Technologies
28/10/2013 eRecyclingCorps LLC VC - Early Growth (Series A to C) 105.0 Recycling & Waste
21/10/2013 KiOR Inc. PIPE 100.0 Biomass
01/10/2013 Telogis Inc PE - Development Capital 93.0 Green Transportation
17/10/2013 Intelligent Energy Ltd. PE - Development Capital 51.0 Energy Storage
07/10/2013 Anaergia Inc. PE - Development Capital 46.1 Biomass
09/10/2013 Achates Power Inc. VC - Early Growth (Series A to C) 35.2 Green Transportation
09/10/2013 Vestas machining and casting units PE - Buyout 33.9 Wind
21/10/2013 Hydrodec Group plc PIPE 32.3 Recycling & Waste
23/10/2013 WiTricity Corp. VC - Late Stage (Series D+) 25.0 Energy Storage
16/10/2013 Proterra Inc. VC - Early Growth (Series A to C) 24.0 Green Transportation / Energy Storage
date Target acquirerdeal value (usd mm)
target sector
18/10/2013 Edison Mission Energy NRG Energy Inc. 2,635.0 Wind
02/10/2013 The Climate Corporation Monsanto Company 930.0 Agriculture
15/10/2013 Siemens Water Technologies Corp. AEA Investors LLC 863.5 Water & Waste Water Treatment
25/10/2013 Suntech Power Holdings Co. Ltd Shunfeng Photovoltaic International Ltd. 493.0 Solar
03/09/2013 Solar plants (2300MW) - Romania Prime Acquisition Corp. 380.0 Solar
09/10/2013 Zep Solar Inc. SolarCity Corp. 158.0 Solar
07/10/2013 Solar plants (83MW) - East Anglia, south and so... Bluefield Partners LLP 153.7 Solar
27/09/2013 Wind farm (20MW) - Cotton Farm,Cambridgesh... Greencoat UK Wind 112.4 Wind
21/10/2013 Wind farm (144MW) - Wyoming TransAlta Renewables Inc. 102.0 Wind
10/10/2013 Solar facility - Mesa, Arizona Undisclosed 100.0 Solar
08/10/2013 Shanghai Pucheng Thermal Power Energy Co.... SIIC Environment Holdings Ltd. 86.3 Biomass
03/07/2013 Renewable Energy Developers Inc. Capstone Infrastructure Corp 66.5 Hydro/Solar/Wind
09/10/2013 Vestas machining and casting units VTC Partners GmbH 33.9 Wind
28/10/2013 Quallion LLC EnerSys 30.0 Energy Storage
15/10/2013 Shanks Group plc (UK solid waste business) Biffa Ltd. 15.2 Recycling & Waste
26/07/2013 ERG Renew Operations & Maintenance ERG SpA 13.2 Wind
18/04/2013 Biodiesel plant - Kuantan Port Felda Global Ventures Holdings Bhd (FGV) 11.5 Biofuels
24/10/2013 ProSep Inc. (assets) PWA Inc. 9.2 Water & Waste Water Treatment
31/10/2013 Solar plant (1.5MW) - Herso, Solar plant (0.5M... SunVault Energy Inc. 6.7 Solar
28/10/2013 Regency Yamuna Energy Ltd. Pan Global Corp. 6.4 Hydro
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data
Project / asset finance142 completed transactions tracked totalling $9.9 billion - top 50 transactions by value displayed here
date Project financing typedeal value (usd mm)
sector
23/10/2013 DolWin1 Transmission Project Construction debt, Government guarantee / fi... 688.0 Energy Efficiency
14/10/2013 Wind farms (274MW) - Infinis UK operational portfolio Project debt 525.0 Wind
23/10/2013 Solar plant (300MW) - Holigonl Construction debt, Equity finance 468.8 Solar
02/10/2013 Wind farm (200.6MW) - Prairie Breeze Construction debt, Tax equity finance 435.3 WInd
08/10/2013 Wind farms (258MW) - Geribatu wind complex Construction debt, Government guarantee / fi... 435.0 WInd
10/10/2013 Wind farm (630MW) - London Array, Phase 1 Project debt 425.0 WInd
02/10/2013 Biomass plant - Sweden Government guarantee / finance, Pre constru... 352.0 Biomass
23/10/2013 Wind farm (105MW) - Cross Winds Energy Park Equity finance 255.0 Wind
24/10/2013 Wind farm (112MW) - Echo Construction debt, Equity finance 250.0 Wind
03/10/2013 Solar modules plant - Gwangju City Construction debt, Equity finance 250.0 Solar
01/10/2013 Solar plant (111MW) - Japan Construction debt, Equity finance 237.5 Solar
31/10/2013 Wind farm (150MW) - Subaoding Construction debt, Equity finance 236.5 Wind
23/10/2013 Solar plant (100MW) - Dingbian, Shaanxi Construction debt, Equity finance 222.0 Solar
01/10/2013 Energy Storage - Abira, Tokyo Government guarantee / finance 202.0 Energy Efficiency
30/10/2013 Wind farm (68MW) - Seigneurie de Beaupre phase II Construction debt, Equity finance 191.0 Wind
07/10/2013 Biomass plant (49MW) - Ohgimachi, Honshu Island Construction debt, Equity finance 165.0 Biomass
01/10/2013 Wind farm (48MW) - Karehamn Equity finance 162.0 Wind
23/10/2013 Solar plant (100MW) - Jingyuan County, Gansu Province Equity finance 138.7 Solar
09/10/2013 Solar plant (45MW) - Slobozia Equity finance 137.0 Solar
24/10/2013 Wind farm (49.5MW) - The First (Pakistan) Construction debt, Equity finance 130.0 Wind
31/10/2013 Solar plant (30MW) - Shangcai County, Zhumadian City, ... Construction debt, Equity finance 122.3 Solar
02/10/2013 Solar plant (55MW) - Rajasthan (Welspun) Construction debt, Equity finance 117.7 Solar
17/10/2013 Biomass plant (46MW) - Santa Vitoria Acucar e Alcool Construction debt, Equity finance 110.0 Biomass
16/10/2013 Wind farm (50MW) - Baleni Construction debt, Equity finance 108.5 Wind
26/10/2013 Solar plant (50MW) - Xigebi, Gansu Province Construction debt, Equity finance 107.0 Solar
11/10/2013 Solar plant (266MW) - Mount Signal Tax equity finance 103.0 Solar
24/10/2013 Wind farm (144MW) - Wyoming Acquisition finance 102.0 Wind
30/10/2013 Solar plants (30MW) - Ontario, Canada Construction debt 100.0 Solar
18/10/2013 Solar plant (30MW) - Spectrum Construction debt, Equity finance 95.7 Solar
29/10/2013 Biomass plant - Qing'an Construction debt, Equity finance 89.8 Biomass
08/10/2013 Water and Wasterwater management program - Greater ... Construction debt 88.0 Water & Waste Water Treatment
04/10/2013 Wind farm (46MW) - Oldman 2 Construction debt 84.0 Wind
09/10/2013 Solar plant (40MW) - Kezuo Houqi Construction debt, Equity finance 81.5 Solar
28/10/2013 Wind farm (40MW) - Wicko Construction debt, Equity finance 80.0 Wind
14/10/2013 Solar plants (20MW) - Ontario Project debt 80.0 Solar
29/10/2013 Wind farm (48MW) - Taiyangping Construction debt, Equity finance 70.4 Wind
31/10/2013 Solar plant (30MW) - Nongershi, Sanshisan Tuan, Xinjiang... Construction debt, Equity finance 67.9 Solar
30/10/2013 Wind farm (49.5MW) - Yanhu, Yuncheng City, Shanxi Prov... Construction debt, Equity finance 67.3 Wind
31/10/2013 Solar plant (30MW) - Wuyuan Shengyu Construction debt, Equity finance 67.2 Solar
01/10/2013 Solar plant (19.5MW) - Great Glemham Construction debt, Equity finance 62.2 Solar
07/10/2013 Solar plant (18.4MW) - Oxford Construction debt, Equity finance 58.7 Solar
23/10/2013 Biomass plant (25MW) - Shangsi County, Guangxi Province Construction debt, Equity finance 58.2 Biomass
01/10/2013 Solar plant (16MW) - Solar PV plant Construction debt, Equity finance 58.0 Solar
31/10/2013 Solar plants (17.8MW) - Loures, Montijo and Montemor-... Construction debt, Equity finance 56.8 Solar
01/10/2013 Solar plant (24MW) - Australia (Fotowatio Renewable Ven... Construction debt, Equity finance 51.4 Solar
08/10/2013 Solar plant (16MW) - Mitchell Pre construction debt, Equity finance 51.0 Solar
14/10/2013 Solar plants (38MW) - Lightsource Renewable Energy ass... Project debt 48.0 Solar
30/10/2013 Desalination plant - Yancheng City, Jiangsu Province, China Construction debt, Equity finance 47.0 Water & Waste Water Treatment
30/10/2013 Solar plant (20MW) - Piqian Phase I Construction debt, Equity finance 45.2 Solar
24/10/2013 Wind farm (20MW) - Sibley County Construction debt, Equity finance 43.4 Wind
Public markets
date Issuer Issue typeProceeds
(usd mm)sector
30/10/2013 Bollore Group SA IPO 56.0 Energy Storage
25/10/2013 REC Solar Inc. IPO 130.0 Solar
24/10/2013 Foresight Solar Fund Ltd. IPO 243.0 Solar
14/10/2013 True Energy Wind S.A IPO 5.0 Wind
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GrEEn InVEstmEnt BanK cOuld raIsE PrOjEct EquIty fund In futurE
Rob Lavine
The UK’s Green Investment Bank could opt to raise a project equity fund as a means of raising additional capital once it has spent its initial £3.8 billion budget, Chief Executive Officer Shaun Kingsbury told Clean Energy Pipeline.
The GIB was launched as a public company by the British government in May 2012 and is tasked with supporting the country’s renewable energy, recycling and energy efficiency sector by supplying capital for large-scale projects. It operates as a for-profit company and will recycle its earnings into further investments, but will also seek to raise funds once its initial £3.8 billion allocation is exhausted.
“With a successful business, in due course we will be able to access different topics of capital,” Kingsbury said. “Certainly, debt would be one of them but we could also raise a project equity fund, where people would give us capital on the back of building a track record, I would hope, that we could invest into offshore wind or something like that.
“One of the areas it might be interesting to look at is if that’s a private equity fund, what could we do around the debt side?”
GIB was formed to help address a shortfall in capital and help harness private investment to support the government’s plans for its transition to a cleaner energy mix. Kingsbury stated that the size of the UK renewable energy market must double to about £20 billion per year if the country is to meet its 2020 European Union targets, but warned that it appears to be entering a fallow investment period, due partly to uncertainty over the transition from the Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROC) subsidy regime to the contracts for difference (CfD) system.
“When you look at the number of transactions, it’s slowing a little bit but that’s because a lot of the projects coming forward are held up in the Energy Market Review, which is designed to really help stimulate financial investors coming into the UK market,” he said. “We believe that is all
There has been speculation concerning the GIB’s ability to raise additional capital through private sources once its initial funds have been allocated but, having only committed £700 million of the initial £3.8 billion,. Kingsbury is confident that it will be able to build a successful track record by that time and will be able to select from several possible sources of capital.
“If we’d exhausted our £3.8 billion and the government weren’t willing to give us anymore and we couldn’t borrow, that would be a real issue,” he said. “But we’re nowhere near exhausting the £3.8 billion. We’ve committed just over £700 million of it, we’ve got more than £3 billion left. Not raising debt is not a challenge because we’re not out of capital.
“We will be able to raise it in due course I’m sure but it may be one of several different types of capital that we could raise.” ■
heading in the right direction but of course an unintended consequence of trying to completely reshape the UK market is that people will sit on their hands and wait to see what that looks like before deciding to push projects forward or not.
“Those projects take three or four years to develop so if you’re sitting on a project now, [you’re deciding] whether you’re on an EPC contract negotiation to bring in the contractor, select the turbines and get it done on the tail end of the ROC regime – there are a couple that might be able to make it - or whether you try and ensure it’s one of the first projects done on the CfD.
“Those types of debates are happening right now and that is not unexpectedly causing an investment hiatus. I would expect the market, particularly in offshore wind, to be less [active] this year than it was last year.”
Interviews & analysis
fund IntEllIGEncE
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sOlar InVEstOr jcm caPItal tO raIsE $150 mIllIOn EquIty fund In 2014
Ronan Murphy
Canadian renewable energy investment firm JCM Capital plans to raise a $150 million equity fund in 2014 to support its project pipeline, Chief Executive Officer Christian Wray told Clean Energy Pipeline.
“We are in the process of raising a long-term equity fund so we can take minority stakes in projects by putting in our own capital at financial close,” he said. “We are targeting $150 million, which will allow us to take stakes of up to 50% in six to 10 projects.”
JCM Capital has also raised $5 million for a development capital fund that has already secured many of the projects that it will eventually part finance through its long-term equity vehicle. The firm is already working on three solar photovoltaic projects comprising about 200 MW in Mexico, three projects totalling 200 MW in Africa and one 25 MW project in Japan, where it aims to invest in 100 MW of capacity.
The firm reached a second close of $5 million for the development capital fund in early September. It aims to reach a final
Interviews & analysis
close of $6 million for that fund, after which it intends to raise a follow-on $20 million development fund to bridge the time gap between initial work on its new projects and financial close, when the larger $150 million fund will come into play.
“The $20 million fund will invest in a similar manner to our first [development] fund,” said Wray. “We’re hoping to reach first close on [the $150 million vehicle] later next year. We have not launched it yet, but we have been working with an investor in our development fund to put it together so we can make investments before we reach first close, which could be as early as Q2 or as late as Q4, depending when the projects are ready for funding.
“Institutional investors will be the target market [for the $150 million fund]. We would like to offer a return to them that would be reasonable for the risk profile of these investments. In emerging markets, something in the mid teens would be reasonable for an investor taking that risk.”
While JCM Capital will take minority stakes in its projects, it primarily partners with project sponsors which take larger positions in the assets. The $150 million fund will give JCM Capital the ability to take sufficient ownership in its projects to further derisk the investment proposition for the sponsors.
In Mexico, South Africa, Japan, and Ecuador, where it has a project further along in the development process, JCM Capital is partnering with local engineering groups or consultancies to build solar projects.
The firm’s goal is to gain a competitive advantage by being the first player to enter new solar markets such as Ecuador, where it has invested in a 50 MW solar farm that is the first large utility-scale PV plant in the country.
JCM Capital has acquired land for three solar farms in Mexico with prospective capacities of 60 MW, 90 MW and 50 MW respectively. The firm has done preliminary development for these projects, applied for generation permits and is now working to secure power purchase agreements. It will look to source PPAs from both government and corporate off-takers.
Wray said JCM Capital hopes to have completed early milestones including securing PPAs for the Mexican projects by early 2014, with a view to begin financing from that point on.
JCM Capital’s African pipeline covers West and East Africa, including a project of between 50 and 100 MW in Cameroon, where the off-taker will be government-owned utility Electricity Development Corp.
Wray said the firm is working to secure a guarantee from Cameroon’s government to strengthen the creditworthiness of the project, and is also collaborating with Cameroonian regulators to finalise how much solar capacity the country’s electricity grid can absorb.
The project will not be directly subsidised, but should be viable due to solar’s relative competitiveness in Cameroon’s energy market, which is dominated by hydro and diesel generation. While solar is more expensive than hydro, it is cheaper than diesel. Wray said JCM Capital hopes to reach financial close for the Cameroon solar farm by the end of 2014, but that the lengthy regulatory processes required for African projects means it could take place later, in early 2015.
In Japan JCM Capital is pursuing a more conventional investment approach based on the country’s attractive feed-in tariff. Restrictions on available space in Japan mean the company is pursuing smaller projects of 2 to 20 MW in size. ■
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Source: Clean Energy Pipeline / VB/Research Ltd.
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Ifc clOsEs In On $300 mIllIOn Of mEna rEnEwaBlEs InVEstmEnt thIs yEar
Rob Lavine
The International Finance Corporation (IFC) will aim to finalise $300 million of renewables investments in Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa before the end of the year and in future will seek to increase this to $500 million or even $1 billion per year, Mouayed Makhlouf, the IFC’s Director for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), told Clean Energy Pipeline.
“We’re funding up to $300 million in renewable energy in MENA, but that’s still to be committed,” Makhlouf said. “We are in a very advanced stage in a few transactions, in Jordan and in Pakistan. These are the two countries where we think we will commit to maybe two or three transactions this year that will focus on renewables.
“There is one transaction in a very advanced stage and in a few weeks it will be finalised and signed. That is in Jordan, and it will focus on wind. The name [of the project] is Tafila, and it is in the market.
We’re also looking at another wind project in Jordan for later this year.”
The 117 MW Tafila project, which is being developed by Jordan Wind, is typical of the kind of project IFC that is looking to finance. IFC generally invests between $50 million and $100 million per transaction and can come in on both the debt and equity side. It will take an equity stake of up to 20% in a project but mostly provides debt financing.
“If we are a lender, the loan has a clear repayment schedule,” Makhlouf explained. “If it is an equity investment, it typically goes for seven, eight, in some cases 10 years. After that we look for an exit, sometimes through the market, or through other bilateral arrangements with our sponsors. Our typical lending product is really [offered at] commercial rates, but where we can really be more flexible is in the other products that we bring in with us.
“There is the idea of coming in at both levels of assets – equity and debt – that not many investors can do, and also we can come in at a longer maturity than some of the other lenders. [For] some of the infrastructure projects we deal with, we come in at 12 or 15 years in some cases.”
IFC can act as sole debt provider but prefers to mobilise additional investment, and is working to raise international awareness of the potential for renewable power generation in MENA. It is collaborating with UAE-based clean energy developer Masdar to promote the sector, and some of the most ardent attention is coming from East Asian investors.
“We are seeing a lot of Asian interest, particularly Chinese and Korean, coming into this space in the MENA regions, be it solar, hydro or wind,” Makhlouf said. “We see interest from Asian investors in all three of these categories and we’re coming in with them in most of these transactions.
“[It is] mainly power companies in both China and Korea that are expanding outside China and looking at these [MENA] countries to set up renewable power plants.”
Makhlouf sees growing appetite for renewables being concentrated on wind energy in Egypt, solar in UAE, Saudi Arabia and Morocco, and biomass and hydro in Pakistan. As interest scales up, IFC will look to increase the amount of funding it supplies to the region, and future years could see its spending increase exponentially if it can attract the right investors.
“We definitely want to ramp up in the renewable energy space, Makhlouf stated. “Historically, this has been a small envelope for MENA itself because there was not much development taking place. But we have really been increasing our efforts in awareness-raising, partly with governments and partly with private investors, to bring them into MENA, because the need is huge, especially when it comes to infrastructure, and specifically power. If we can direct some of that attention to renewables I think that will be a huge achievement.
“If we can work up to $500 million a year in the renewables space we will be very happy, but it could be even more. If we manage to promote this agenda of renewables in MENA and these countries see the value of it, as they are now, I think this could potentially go into multiples of that. Even $1 billion is something that’s very possible, because the need in the power space is really huge in MENA so $1 billion could easily be absorbed in the market.” ■
Interviews & analysis
9
Interviews & analysis
us InVEstmEnt fIrm aIms tO InVEst $250 mIllIOn In rEnEwaBlEs OVEr nExt thrEE yEars
Ronan Murphy
New York-based alternative investment firm Tamra-Tacoma Capital Partners aims to invest approximately $250 million in renewable energy over the next three years, its Founding Principal Matthew Brown told Clean Energy Pipeline.
The renewables investment is part of a wider $500 million investment plan the firm announced in September that also encompasses commercial real estate, filmed entertainment and digital media.
Tamra-Tacoma’s renewable energy investment strategy differs from the typical private equity approach in that the firm will target projects with disproportionate risk
Brown explained that the attractiveness of Texas for wind energy investment is a combination of its plentiful wind resources, abundant land and the fact that development of projects is more efficient and less time-consuming in comparison to other North American states.
“Texas, in my opinion, has one of the best wind environments in the US, proven PPAs and great support systems,” said Brown.
“Comparative to the rest of the US it is a lot easier and a lot more efficient to manoeuvre. When you’re talking about the PPA, the land lease, permits and the easements, it is a lot more efficient than utility-scale systems in the north-eastern US.”
According to Brown, one of the main reasons for this increased efficiency is that wind investors in Texas will commonly seek to build projects on sites owned by farmers with plenty of spare land who are eager to reap the benefits a large energy project can bring.
“Primarily, the previous proven exposure of large facilities in the state of Texas has made it easier for investors to come in,” he said.
“Secondly, the majority of the wind in Texas is in West Texas and that is comprised of farms and ranch owners. It’s a lot more efficient to work with a rancher or a farmer than it is a commercial developer or real estate owner in terms of leasing their land. You can do so quickly and you can do it in bulk (for example, Texas’s largest wind farm, Roscoe Wind Farm, is comprised of more than 400 property owners).”
Brown acknowledged that Tamra-Tacoma’s target IRR of 20% is ambitious for renewable energy projects, which typically realise returns in the low- to mid-teens even when leveraged.
“Twenty percent is pretty aggressive and in Texas it can be difficult to reach that number,” he said. “To do so, you’re looking for a responsive and cooperative debt sponsor and even then, most of the time you won’t get there.
“For us, we’ve been very fortunate to have established with key US banks and lenders – they are available. Playing around with different mechanisms, hedges, financial packages and stacks is the key to taking that IRR north of 20%.” ■
premiums that offer high internal rates of return of about 20% with leverage and after tax.
The firm intends to invest in distributed generation solar and wind assets across the US, but its main target market for renewables is utility-scale wind in Texas, specifically within the Electricity Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) grid, which represents 85% of the state’s electricity load.
“With regards to utility-scale wind, we have wonderful banking relationships that allow us to manoeuvre quite efficiently within the ERCOT Grid in Texas,” said Brown. “We’re also active in Oklahoma, Colorado, Oregon and California.”
Texas generates the most wind power of any state in the US and has more than 10.7 GW of installed wind energy capacity. Wind now accounts for about 10% of Texas’s overall energy production.
10
11
sOuth afrIcan cOmmErcIal BanKs’ aPPEtItE fOr afrIcan rEnEwaBlEs rIsEs In waKE Of rEIPPPP
Ronan Murphy
South African commercial banks are showing increased appetite for renewable energy projects in other African nations thanks to the expertise in the sector they have built up through their own country’s renewables procurement programme, Africa-focused investment firm Ariya Capital’s Chief Executive Officer Herta von Stiegel told Clean Energy Pipeline.
Ariya Capital Group has entered into a joint venture agreement with Aeolus Kenya, which this month closed financing for the $150 million project Kinangop wind farm in Kenya.
Stanbic Bank, the Kenyan subsidiary of Standard Bank, provided the debt finance for the 60.8 MW project, and some of the equity was provided by Norwegian government-backed development fund Norfund.
Von Stiegel said the firm is also developing several sizeable solar projects in Kenya,
Interviews & analysis
a 100 MW wind farm in Tanzania and an infrastructure complex in Uganda that comprises a large solar plant, an agri-industrial processing centre and a cargo terminal.
“We are committed to putting at least 500 MW of power into the region over the next three to five years,” said von Stiegel. “We are in discussions with a number of strategic investors to secure additional capital, which will be used for development capital and to fund our share of equity in our projects.”
Ariya Capital’s model for African renewables investment is to use holding company structures and co-invest with other equity partners, while retaining the right to inject up to 20% of equity in any project.
It sources debt from development and commercial banks, the latter of which are now becoming a major force in African renewables following years of apprehension over the economic and political viability of the sector in the continent, according to von Stiegel.
“There is quite a significant appetite for bankable projects on the debt side,” she said. “Commercial appetite is a relatively new development. We see appetite
from major African banks for African infrastructure and clean energy projects and we see more and more of the South African banks who have assembled sophisticated project finance teams to meet the challenge.
“The syndication role commercial banks are playing is very important and augments other traditional development players who have been willing and able to provide debt.”
Multilateral and development groups such as the African Development Bank and International Finance Corp. have often been the sole sources of financing for risky African renewables projects, but South African banks are now more comfortable with the sector thanks to their experience over the past 18 months in financing the first two phases of South Africa’s 3.725 GW Renewable Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (REIPPPP).
The likes of Standard Bank, which underwrote the Kinangop wind farm in Kenya, and South African bank Nedbank, have provided the bulk of financing to REIPPPP projects, aided by extensive advice provided by international consultants. ►
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12
Interviews & analysis
“The South African government has been very aspirational in its goals for CO2 emissions reduction and the South African banks have really stepped up to the plate,” said von Stiegel. “They have increased their product offering and boosted their level of expertise, and it really shows.”
Rising availability of debt financing for African renewables is being accompanied by a healthy flow of equity investment interest from infrastructure funds and development banks, but there is still a major gap in development capital to get projects through their early stages, according to von Stiegel.
“The focus needs to be on increasing that pool of capital,” she said.
The projects Ariya Capital is targeting in East Africa require no subsidies as they are cost-competitive due to the high price of electricity in the region. The two main risks the firm must address for utility projects relate to stability for both national grids and political systems.
Ariya cooperates extensively with energy ministries and domestic network engineers to address the capability of African grids to absorb large amounts of new intermittent capacity.
The firm takes out political risk insurance for all its projects and adheres to strict guidelines covering the rule of law and press freedom when evaluating in which countries it will operate. However, improved political conditions in parts of East Africa, with the recent relatively trouble-free Kenyan presidential elections a prime example, are changing perceptions of the region in terms of risk.
“The political risk issue is definitely getting better but these types of sophisticated projects, particularly if they’re on-grid, need to be done with a utility that is stable,” said von Stiegel. “Kenya Power and Lighting Company has a good track record, for example.”
Beyond utility assets, Ariya Capital is also working on several solar off-grid projects, a sector that von Stiegel said could be set to boom.
“The price of solar has come down so much that it will come into its own in respect to off-grid and large housing developments, “ she said. ■
allIEd IrIsh BanKs EarmarKs Eur300 mIllIOn tO Eur400 mIllIOn fOr rEnEwaBlEs
Jessica Mills-Davies
Irish commercial bank Allied Irish Banks (AIB) has earmarked Eur300 million to Eur400 million of a Eur1 billion green allocation it expects to make over the next three to four years specifically to renewable energy projects, Associate Director of Emerging Sectors Ray O’Neill told Clean Energy Pipeline.
The bank will invest a smaller portion of the earmarked funds, of about Eur200 million to Eur300 million, in residential energy efficiency, and the rest of the capital will be spent on clean transport initiatives.
AIB plans to broaden its financial offerings next year to include SME credit, personal finance, equity release, and home retrofit financing options for customers.
The lender also wants to make a bundled offering available for electric vehicles and energy retailers, and expects to make further details of these options available in the next six months.
Renewable energy will be the cornerstone of the bank’s Eur1 billion future sustainability, clean energy and energy efficiency investments. It is currently in advanced talks with the European Investment Bank (EIB) to negotiate a Eur100 million loan to support a Eur200 million fund AIB plans to set up to support Irish onshore wind.
“AIB took the initiative with the fund,” O’Neill said. “The fund and loan
announcements were the same. They haven’t been closed.”
Obtaining multilateral support for the financing endeavour is crucial, given the long tenors of the loans provided, he added.
The wind fund will only support onshore wind farms that benefit from Ireland’s renewable energy feed-in tariff, and will not support offshore wind farms. The largest size of projects that will be supported under the fund by value will entail project costs of up to Eur50 million.
O’Neill said the common practice of curtailment in Ireland does not present a massive risk to onshore wind investments under the fund, as curtailment only affects existing onshore wind projects’ output by shaving electricity production at times of overcapacity.
In addition, the fund will only benefit projects that supply energy to Ireland’s domestic market, ruling out any investments in wind farms procured for export to the UK under Element Power’s planned Greenwire link.
O’Neill confirmed that AIB wants to invest in renewables due to the enormous market it represents in Ireland, with 6-7 GW of wind capacity expected to be installed by 2020. By March 2012, Ireland’s installed wind capacity had already reached 2 GW.
Aside from wind power, AIB intends to make financing available for biomass and residential solar projects. It plans to increase its exposure to these markets alongside providing greater financing options for energy efficiency and transport initiatives over the coming years. ■
13
Interviews & analysis
GOOd EnErGy wIll nEEd tO sOurcE uP tO £165 mIllIOn By 2016 fOr 110 mw PIPElInE
Jessica Mills-Davies
Green energy retailer Good Energy expects to use non-recourse project finance to provide a majority of the £110 million to £165 million of funding it will require to build 110 MW of renewable energy capacity by 2016, Chief Executive Juliet Davenport told Clean Energy Pipeline.
In October the AIM-listed energy retailer issued a £15 million unsecured retail bond with a four-year maturity date and 7.25% coupon that will offer its customers an opportunity to invest in the company’s growth. It is the first minibond to be issued by a publicly listed company.
“A listed company has not done this kind of product aimed towards retail investors and its customers,” Davenport said.
Good Energy set a capacity target in 2011 of 110 MW to be deployed by 2016 and has about 48.6 MW of the targeted volume in operation or in the planning stage. These include a 9.2 MW operational wind farm in Cornwall, an 8 MW wind project in development in Doncaster and two planned solar projects with a combined capacity of 30 MW that have secured planning.
Good Energy’s 200 MW project portfolio, including projects that are pre-planning, in planning or out of planning (excluding those that are built or in construction), substantially exceeds its target production volume.
“It’s likely we may sell some of those sites to help fund the rest of the portfolio if we are successful at getting that many through planning,” Davenport said.
The energy retailer will be able to determine which of these assets require financing as and when they secure planning permission, but Davenport said it is unclear which project will need to be financed next.
“We’re waiting for a few more to come out of planning and then we will come up with a strategy about which ones we are going to hold or sell and take those forward,” she said. “We haven’t got one that’s definitely going to go into build yet.”
Good Energy has raised £6.5 million from the equity markets over the past 18 months and could turn to the equity or debt markets for project finance in the future. It expects to enter discussions with banks about finance as new projects emerge from the planning pipeline.
“In the future [whether we launch future bonds] will depend on the size and ability of the company to take that on,” said Davenport.
“Energy customers were some of the original investors in the company back in 2002 and they’ve been fantastic supporters of the company since then. We like having a diverse range of investors, it gives us a better base to take the company forward.
“It is a possibility we could raise more finance from the equity market or banks in the future. We will consider [all areas] as we understand exactly the size of the portfolio that comes out of planning. We’ve done some equity, this is the next stage. We will be talking to banks about project finance as we get to the point where we need project finance.”
Good Energy posted a 27% year-on-year increase in revenues to £18.2 million in the first half of 2013 and a 47% boost in profit before tax to £1.2 million, on comprehensive net income for the period of £1.18 million. It also added its 100,000th customer in October.
Davenport attributed this increment to the core growth across the company, which saw it achieve increases across all of its customer bases, together with improvements in trading performance and strong performance from its Cornish wind farm.
“The expectation is continued growth [during the rest of 2013], [but] in terms of output of the sites, we can’t forecast the wind,” said Davenport. ■
14
Interviews & analysis
csP start-uP shIfts fOcus tO mEna OIl and watEr marKEts
Ronan Murphy
US concentrated solar power technology developer eSolar has shifted its focus from utility-scale power generation to enhanced oil recovery (EOR) and desalination solutions in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Chief Executive Officer John Van Scoter told Clean Energy Pipeline.
eSolar secured a $22 million equity funding in September from its existing backers and will invest the proceeds in its expansion into the MENA region.
Van Scoter said the most recent funding was part of a wider $30 million round for which eSolar is still seeking the remaining $8 million. The remainder would ideally be sourced from a strategic investor with interests in EOR or desalination.
The company has continued to attract significant funding in the aftermath of the financial crisis and decline of cleantech venture capital funding although it is yet to enter full commercialisation. It has raised more than $200 million to date, including a $40 million strategic investment from General Electric in August 2011.
Its success is even more unique given that competition from photovoltaic power means it is now virtually impossible to finance large-scale CSP plants in the US that do not benefit from the Department of Energy loan guarantee programme, which closed in September 2011.
Van Scoter explained that the efficiency of eSolar’s technology, combined with its strategy to move into new markets, are the two main reasons for its backers’ enduring support.
eSolar’s power generation system is a tower design that utilises low-cost, mass-produced components including a small heliostat that is pre-assembled in a modular format, which enables significant cost savings. It is designed to be installed with minimal complexity and can be scaled from 48 MW to more than 500 MW.
The company also utilises molten salt technology to provide energy storage
capabilities, which Van Scoter said makes it competitive with PV.
However, the current lack of investor appetite for large CSP projects in the US means that eSolar must look to adjacent non-power generation markets to begin securing revenue.
“Because of delays to the big power markets we are looking to EOR, desalination and other industrial sectors,” said Van Scoter. “These projects move faster and will allow us to build a continuous revenue stream.”
With its large oil industry and urgent fresh water requirements, the MENA region is a primary market for EOR and desalination technology.
CSP technology can lower the cost of EOR by replacing the oil or natural gas that is burned to generate steam and reduce the viscosity of heavy crude reservoirs, allowing more oil to flow to the surface. By using a CSP array to generate steam, the producer automatically improves the efficiency of an oil field.
“[Companies] are burning a $100 barrel of oil to create steam for two more barrels, so it makes more sense to use our system,” said Van Scoter.
“In Asia, natural gas is not cheap, there is a lot of demand and few resources, so countries that do have gas in the region would rather ship at $15 per MMbtu than burn it for oil.”
Major potential MENA markets for solar EOR include Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
In desalination, eSolar’s technology could also replace fossil fuel alternatives as a generator of process steam and electricity, and could have applications beyond the MENA region in other markets with high water demand, such as Australia.
Van Scoter said he is confident that the company will announce at least one, and potentially two, major MENA contracts for projects that will be completed in 2014. The degree of success will determine eSolar’s future funding efforts.
“I can see my way to a Series D round if we land only one project,” said Van Scoter. “If it’s more than one we won’t want to raise additional capital in the short term.”
EOR and desalination in MENA will be the company’s primary market in the short term, acting as a bridge and proving ground for a later expansion back into large-scale power generation in the US, but Van Scoter did not rule out the possibility that the new strategy may become permanent if it is sufficiently successful.
“I would like to think of it as a transition but both markets [adjacent and power generation] are extremely large,” he said. “It is entirely possible that the adjacent markets could remain our largest business. We are pragmatists with an eye on the longer term. We have moved to other places and if that works well we will keep going.” ■
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16
Interviews & analysis
sOlar dEVElOPEr rEcurrEnt EnErGy tO ExPand IntO tExas, australIa
Rob Lavine
US-based solar developer Recurrent Energy plans to expand from its core markets of California and Ontario into Texas and Australia as it increases the size of its projects, David Brochu, the company’s Senior Vice President of Development, told Clean Energy Pipeline.
More than 60% of Recurrent’s operational solar portfolio is based in California, and 35% of it is located in Canada or Arizona. However, it is planning to move into the Texas and Australian markets, both of which are in relatively early stages of development, but which are equipped with lots of sunshine and already thriving wind power markets, which means strong transmission infrastructure is already in place to serve intermittent solar capacity.
“We are doing some work into new areas outside of California and Ontario, Texas and Australia being a couple of areas that are growing for us,” Brochu said. “They’re both markets that have a strong interest in renewables, and both have had fairly large-scale wind development going on.
“I think in those markets you see wind dominate as a result of the renewables policies that they’ve had, and now solar is growing in interest; in Texas for example with the municipal utilities, and in Australia with the independent electricity retailers. [Firstly they see it] as a way to meet their renewable energy obligations, but also as a hedge against long term natural gas and as a peak energy solution for them, peak energy prices being high.”
Recurrent is working to complete a total of 24 projects in 2013 with an overall capacity of 315 MW, with a view to establishing a 515 MW portfolio by the end of the fiscal year. The developer has a long-term 2 GW project pipeline. It has gradually increased the average project size as the company grows and is now seeking to develop projects up to 500 MW in size.
“That [2 GW] pipeline is being developed out in the next five years,” Brochu said. “I know within the next year or so there’s going to be another 200 MW put online for sure, and then we have other projects beyond that which will probably come online in the next two or three years. You’re probably talking about 200 MW to 500 MW coming online in the next two-to-five years.
“[A 500 MW project] is probably large but we certainly see some projects that size that are opportunities for us. We started off in 2006 and 2007 more behind the meter and in commercial rooftop, so in the hundreds of kilowatts. Then we moved up to the 5-25 MW range – more distributed – and since then we’ve moved up to 20-25 MW being the minimum. You’ll most likely see projects in the 50-200 MW being the majority of the projects and going above 200 MW is going to be a unique opportunity. I think the sweet spot’s probably in that 50-200 MW range.”
Recurrent has an advantage in that the North American solar sector is currently healthy and the company is seeing strong investment interest in its key markets. Mitsubishi Corporation and Osaka Gas acquired a nine-project, 100 MW Ontario portfolio from the developer in June last year, and it sold an 86 MW portfolio to Fiera Axium Infrastructure and MetLife last week.
“Project financing has been great, we can’t complain,” Brochu said. “I think we’ve got about $3 billion of private financing secured to date. We’re just shifting from our 2013 portfolio to project financing our 2014 portfolio and we’ve seen nothing but good opportunities there.” ■
17
uK sOlar can match hInKlEy nuclEar PrOductIOn In twO yEars wIth rIGht suPPOrt, says lEadInG dEVElOPEr
Ronan Murphy
The UK solar industry has the capability to deliver the same energy production as the Hinkley Point C nuclear plant within less than two years at a comparable cost if the government provides greater security to investors, the country’s leading solar developer LightSource Renewable Energy said in an open letter to Prime Minister David Cameron in late October.
LightSource Operations Director Mark Turner said: “Solar power will not be the entire solution, but if we supported its deployment then within a couple of years we could have 10% of the UK’s energy mix [based on today’s figures] completely free from the vagaries of the global fossil fuel markets. This would then combine with the 9% [based on existing capacity] from Hinkley Point C when it eventually comes on stream.”
The 3.2 GW Hinkley Point C nuclear plant was awarded a 35-year contract-for-difference subsidy in October at a price of £92.50 per megawatt-hour. The plant will cost about £16 billion to build and will not come online until 2023. Turner argued that the experience of Italy and Germany, which installed a combined solar capacity of more than 15 GW in 2011 alone, shows that solar is capable of scaling swiftly to plug the gap that will be caused by the scheduled switch-off of 20% of UK energy capacity by 2018.
He told Clean Energy Pipeline in an interview that solar is capable of reaching 10% of UK capacity at current subsidy levels and that further direct funding is not necessary. Despite the fact that the available feed-in tariff revenue has fallen
to less than 20% of what it was at the beginning of 2011, LightSource and other developers are still deploying large amounts of solar capacity.
Turner instead outlined other ways in which the government can enable solar expansion, particularly through avoiding destabilising rhetoric such as Cameron’s statement in October that he will seek to roll back green levies on energy bills.
“The first thing the government can do is to stop talking about reviewing the green taxes that support renewables when that is a complete distraction from the fact that fossil fuel prices are rising and that is what is causing bills to rise,” he said.
The second, more proactive way in which the government can stimulate solar investment is to enable more large-scale rooftop installations by offering some form of financing guarantees to investors wary of counterparty risk.
“Doing large-scale rooftop in the UK is difficult,” said Turner. “Finding counterparties that have sufficient credit strength is difficult. Providing mechanisms that [provide] investors in solar [with] security should counterparties fail would increase the likelihood that we would be able to deploy more rooftop PV.”
Turner cited the fact that certain similar guarantees were written into the Hinkley Point deal, with the credit-worthiness of government agencies set to significantly de-risk participation for investors.
Another essential pillar of UK solar deployment is the planning system, which Turner said is currently well-balanced, but must be maintained and not altered to make development more difficult.
The fourth way in which Turner said solar development can be accelerated is for regulators to be more aggressive in
freeing up grid capacity that is currently unavailable because it has been awarded to projects that are not capable of being constructed.
“There is a lot of capacity in the grid that is blocked up because of previous applications that have gone in,” said Turner. “People are sitting on grid offers but don’t have the wherewithal to deliver, but there is no clear guidance on how long an offer can be active until it should be reviewed. More of a push to sort this out is something the government could do to open up and provide us with the confidence we could continue.”
Another significant derisking measure that could be implemented is to give solar rooftop investors the right to re-build their installation at the tariff they originally received in the event that the roof which originally housed the PV panels becomes no longer usable. Examples of when this could take place range from a building being destroyed by fire or being pulled down for the land to be reused.
“Some of these big warehouse sheds don’t have that [25-year tariff] life in them and won’t be there 25 years from now,” said Turner. “What looked like big stable companies as off-takers may not be, so you’re dealing with a microcosm of both the roof and the company that owns it, not just the roof site.”
Increased activity in the UK secondary market for operational solar assets has boosted LightSource’s faith that investment appetite in the sector is strong enough to support a rapid expansion.
“Infrastructure funds are very attracted by something that produces reliable returns,” said Turner. “Pension funds are looking for something that generates annuity income and these kinds of assets have been in short supply.” ■
18
Interviews & analysis
radIan tarGEts GaP In manaGEmEnt sErVIcEs marKEt fOr sEcOndary us sOlar assEts
Ronan Murphy
California-based asset management service provider Radian Generation plans to use new strategic investment to fill a gap in the secondary market for solar asset management services in the US, its Chief Executive Officer Chad Sachs told Clean Energy Pipeline.
The start-up secured undisclosed strategic investment from asset management services group QuietStream in October to help finance its expansion.
The company’s partners were previously collectively responsible for closing 42 MW of solar investment funds across five separate vehicles, while Sachs alone has raised more than $800 million of permanent financing for 165 MW of projects on behalf of other investors and developers.
Sachs said Radian’s goal is to have 300 MW of solar capacity under management within the next few years. The company
is focused on commercial distributed generation and small utility-scale solar projects in the 500 kW to 20 MW range.
“The segment that has a lot of potential that is still very poorly executed is commercial distributed generation,” said Sachs. “It is smaller and does not get the transaction efficiencies that utility-scale assets do, but projects are big enough to have the same complexity, so someone needs to figure that out. There are lots of strategies to attack that market because it should be quite sizeable.”
Assets of this size are particularly in need of management services. While 50 MW plus projects are more likely to be directly managed by utilities, sub-20 MW projects are frequently owned by financial investors that have wrapped them into wider portfolios. Such owners often lack the expertise or capacity to efficiently manage their assets.
“In solar, asset management is usually viewed as operations and maintenance,” said Sachs. “There is a lot more to it, including contract compliance and financial asset management. If that doesn’t get done, the project doesn’t perform and the
investment doesn’t work. People always talk about lowering technology costs, but everything has to be made more efficient.”
Sachs argued that genuine solar asset management services are not widespread in the US, with owners of plants still heavily responsible for administration. He said this is expected to rapidly change with the introduction of new, larger financial investors into the market.
“Historically, solar project owners have been more developers and niche investors willing to get their hands dirty,” he said. “As massive capital flows in we need asset management services. These investors do not want to be managing the day to day aspects of operations.
“There is a growing secondary market. Tax equity players are looking to exit their positions after harvesting tax benefits, so there are more passive cash-based players looking to buy in for these long-lived, stable, yielding assets. There are some smaller Asian funds we have been talking to, some larger pension funds in the US and family offices that are looking for high-yielding assets.”
Of these newer entrants, family offices are the most active while pension funds are still tentative because they have not yet identified the scale of portfolio opportunities necessary for them to invest, according to Sachs.
Radian is also intent on exploring a range of potential new financial structures for solar projects, including master limited partnerships (MLPs), which are investment vehicles traditionally used in the oil and gas industry that protect power asset profits from corporate taxes on the condition that the majority of profits are distributed to investors.
MLPs are currently not open to renewable energy projects, although Delaware’s Democrat Senator Chris Coons introduced legislation in 2012 to enable their use for solar and wind. That legislation is still passing through government, but Sachs is confident that structures similar to MLPs are feasible even under existing legislation.
“There are synthetic MLPs where you can do financial arrangements to get in a similar position [to projects with formal MLPs],” he said. “So, I’m not sure the legal challenge is a real barrier. The question is whether there is sufficient scale to realise the benefits.” ■
19
20
Interviews & analysis
xcEl EnErGy cOnsIdErs taKInG EquIty In $2.85 BIllIOn Of PlannEd wInd POwEr addItIOns
Jessica Mills-Davies
North American utility Xcel Energy plans to add about 1.9 GW of nominal wind capacity, representing approximately $2.85 billion of investment, to its supply base in the next couple of years funded on balance sheet, Director of Environmental Policy Jack Ihle told Clean Energy Pipeline.
The Minneapolis-based power supplier is one of North America’s largest gas and electricity utilities. It serves about eight states and has supplied more wind power to customers than any other utility in the US for nearly a decade.
Ihle said in a telephone interview that Xcel is finalising contracts across 1.9 GW of wind projects, all of which are expected to be able to meet the Wind Production Tax Credit (PTC) requirement to start construction by the end of this year.
“There are six to 12 projects involved and the way the PTC is structured those projects have to begin before the end of 2013, but their completion date trails into the next couple of years,” he said. “Roughly speaking, they all come online in the next two to three years.”
Xcel may take equity ownership in some or all of the projects, according to Ihle. Although most of the wind power Xcel supplies is acquired through purchasing, he said “ownership may be options under some of the projects.” As a regulated utility, its investments are typically funded on balance sheet.
“We consider [the projects] as power purchases at first and then we consider whether we want to acquire parts of them,” said Ihle.
“We have not done project finance historically. We are a regulated utility and that’s how we tend to add investments, whether it is wind or a natural gas plant or a transmission line, it goes against the company balance sheet and it’s all under the purview of the Public Utilities Commission.”
In October, Xcel won approval from the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission to add four wind farms totalling 750 MW of the planned 1.9 GW of wind additions to its Upper Midwest grid.
Xcel will buy power from two of the wind farms, all of which are scheduled to enter operation by the end of 2015, and acquire full ownership of the remaining two.
Geronimo Energy is building two of the four projects, the 200 MW Courtenay and 200 MW Odell wind farms. Xcel Energy will acquire the other two projects, the 200 MW Pleasant Valley and 150 MW Border Winds projects, both of which are being developed by RES America Developments Inc.
By 2020, Ihle expects wind energy will constitute about 20% of the energy Xcel supplies to customers. Solar, which only comprises 0.5% of its supply at present, is expected to constitute 2% by that time.
Solar power remains more expensive for the utility to procure than wind, but it provides a different value proposition as it can supply peak capacity during busy hours much more effectively. However, in the windy territories that the company serves (between Minnesota and Texas) wind farms frequently record a higher
capacity factor than solar systems, often making wind the more cost-effective option.
Aside from the role played by Renewable Portfolio Standards, Xcel is driven to invest in wind power by the economics of the resource versus other options. Ihle said the utility is able to purchase wind power for less than $40 per MWh in some cases.
Xcel hosts solicitations for new power supplies once every two to four years. During this process, wind power supplies under fixed-term contracts of about 20-25 years are modelled in comparison to future natural gas and coal price forecasts.
Natural gas prices are expected to increase over the coming years, according to the company’s modelling, though they have consistently fallen below predictions.
Wind power tends to offset natural gas in Xcel’s power supply, Ihle said. Meanwhile coal is largely uncompetitive economically, especially in light of proposed greenhouse gas rules from the Environmental Protection Agency, which Ihle said will “all but block new coal in the US”. ■
OnshOrE wInd
clean Energy mergers & acquisitions 1Q09 to 3Q13
Source: Clean Energy Pipeline / VB/Research Ltd.
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50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
Num
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f deals
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l val
ue ($
bill
ion)
Deals under $500 million Deals over $500 million Number of deals
21
Interviews & analysis
fIrst us wInd lEasInG cOmPany tarGEts $500 mIllIOn caPItal raIsE
Jessica Mills-Davies
United Wind Inc., the product of merger this year between New York-based data provider Wind Analytics and California-based turbine distributer Talco, plans to raise $500 million by 2017 to finance its wind energy leasing business, Chief Executive Officer Russell Tencer told Clean Energy Pipeline.
Although the solar leasing model spearheaded by US installer SolarCity is increasingly widespread, United Wind is the first US company to pursue leasing for wind power installations.
The merged company raised $25 million in tax equity in September to support a pipeline of 150 proof-of-concept wind projects in rural areas of New York, Maryland, Massachusetts and Oregon, which will be eligible for the US Investment Tax Credit (ITC).
“We were the first company to raise tax equity for a programmatic [wind] leasing platform,” said Tencer. “That puts us ahead of the pack in terms of being able to show we’ve got the capital to build projects.”
The developer will focus on turbines of up to 100 kilowatts, which is the ceiling at which projects built before 2016 can benefit from the ITC.
It has the full amount of capital necessary to build out its existing pipeline, including a mix of tax equity, tax rebates and state level rebates, with some sponsor equity.
“We’re expecting to complete construction on the whole portfolio by the end of next year,” said Tencer. “We’ve just signed our first lease last week and we’ve got a number of additional leases being signed now. We’re going to start breaking ground on those projects as soon as 30 days from now.”
Although the initial tax equity the company has raised was unlevered, it expects to use debt as the business expands. It will also target between $50 million and $100 million of tax equity in mid-2014.
Once it has built its proof-of-concept pipeline, United Wind intends to secure $500 million of tax equity and debt through to 2017. Most of the capital will be sourced from banks and other institutions, and 10-20% of the projects will be financed through sponsor equity.
Talco and Wind Analytics merged specifically to pursue the lease financing PPA model, which has “worked so well for distributed solar”, said Tencer. The targeted funding will support between 2,000 and 3,000 distributed projects through to 2017.
Talco alone has a network of more than 100 installers across the US and has built 150 distributed wind projects to date. Wind Analytics’ technology, meanwhile, enables the company to forecast a project’s return on investment.
“[At Wind Analytics] we developed a technology that made it possible to figure how much wind was at the location and choose a turbine that would perform best at an optimal point and height (at a low cost and high degree of accuracy),” said Tencer. “Without that technology, it would be very difficult to offer wind leasing at this scale.”
The wind leasing model allows United Wind to provide energy cost savings, and offers households greater control and independence over energy generation.
“We own the equipment, we are taking care of it, we’re insuring it and there’s no risk to the customer, whereas if they own it they own all the additional risk of taking care of it,” said Tencer.
PPAs are generally not available for distributed-scale wind as investors seek to see a fixed monthly payment, but United Wind may eventually offer a combination of leases and PPAs for distributed projects.
“Right now, our leases are a good way to start to give the market comfort in terms of consistent payments on a monthly basis that are non-variable,” said Tencer. “As we proceed and have more data, we will start to offer different variations on that, including PPAs.” ■
We were the first company to raise tax equity for a programmatic [wind] leasing platform. That puts us ahead of the pack in terms of being able to show we’ve got the capital to build projects.
“”
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EnEcO, mItsuBIshI cOrPOratIOn tO fInancE 129 mw nEthErlands OffshOrE wInd farm On BalancE shEEts
Ronan Murphy
Dutch energy producer Eneco and Japanese industrial group Mitsubishi Corporation are fully funding construction of the 129 MW Luchterduinen wind farm off the Netherlands coast from their balance sheets with a view to refinancing once the project is commissioned, Eneco Director of Offshore Wind Ruben Dijkstra told Clean Energy Pipeline.
Eneco sold a 50% stake in the Luchterduinen project to Mitsubishi in January 2013 as part of a long-term offshore wind investment agreement between the two companies.
Dijkstra explained in an interview that the Eur450 million project will be fully funded from the owners’ balance sheets to ensure the wind farm is completed swiftly, which would not be possible if it sought conventional project debt finance from banks.
“Construction finance would delay the execution of the project,” he said. “Financing adds nine months or so. Luchterduinen is a relatively small project so the balance sheet of Mitsubishi and Eneco allows us to do it. It’s not that there is a constriction on the availability of funding, as the project is quite
attractive. It’s just to make sure the project is operational as quickly as possible.”
Eneco will be in position to consider refinancing the project once it enters full operations in the second half of 2015. This will allow the wind farm to be refinanced on favourable terms, as several key risk factors including construction will be mitigated. Additionally, an operating project could also attract equity investment from institutional players such as pension funds.
Part of the deal that Mitsubishi struck to buy its stake in Luchterduinen will also see Eneco give the Japanese group the opportunity to invest in its other offshore wind farms, be they in development or already operating.
Eneco’s only operating wind farm to date is the 120 MW Prinses Amalia project, which entered operation in 2008. Dijkstra said considerations for Mitsubishi to invest in the project are ongoing, but no final agreement has yet been reached.
The two other Eneco offshore wind farms that Mitsubishi could potentially invest in at this stage are Navitus Bay in the UK and Norther in Belgium, but any Mitsubishi participation in either project is made more complex by the fact that both are already 50-50 joint ventures.
Eneco’s Navitus Bay is half-owned by French energy group EDF, while Belgian wind power producer Electrawinds holds half of Norther.
“It is likely that we will look into opportunities for the two named projects but that depends on our investing JV structure and whether it allows a new investor to step in,” said Dijkstra.
Eneco is targeting financial close of the 300 MW Norther project by the end of next year, but Dijkstra warned that several regulatory factors could delay the project.
First, a law that defines offshore wind subsidies must be passed through the Belgian parliament by the end of this year, as 2014 is a general election year, during which new incentive regulations are unlikely to be passed.
Additionally, Belgian regulators need to make a decision on whether the offshore grid infrastructure for new wind farms will be built by the developers, as is the current case, or by state grid operator Elia. Furthermore, onshore grid reinforcements
are necessary to absorb new offshore wind capacity into Belgium’s national network, for which permits have been submitted. A verdict from the Belgian Council of State is expected to be reached sometime next year.
If any of these regulatory processes are delayed, the most likely outcome is that financial close for Norther would simply be put back a year.
The UK Navitus Bay project, located off the Isle of Wight on England’s south coast, has also been subject to regulatory pressures. Eneco reduced the number of turbines to be used in the 1.1 GW wind farm from 333 to 218 after a public consultation triggered concerns over the installation’s visual impact.
The developer completed another consultation on the project in October and aims to submit a planning application by March 2014. Approval of the wind farm is expected in 2015, which is the earliest Eneco and EDF can make a final investment decision. If the project moves forward they will aim to reach financial close at the beginning of 2017.
An investment decision is contingent on Navitus Bay securing a contract-for-difference subsidy, which will take over completely from the Renewables Obligation in 2017. Dijkstra said the preliminary structure and strike price for the CfD announced this summer are positive, but that concerns remain over the exact amount of funding that the UK government will make available for offshore wind through its Levy Control Framework.
“The strike price levels are quite attractive compared to the Netherlands or Belgium, so I’m positive,” he said. “We have more concerns about the limited pot of money, with £7.6 billion available in 2020 on an annual basis. We need to understand whether there is room for our projects by that time.
“There is a substantial pipeline of offshore wind projects and the Department of Energy and Climate Change has indicated that there may only be [subsidy] room for 8-12 GW, which would be consumed by remaining Round 2 and 2.5 projects. Whether there is any support for Round 3 projects before 2020 remains to be seen. There is also no clarity on Electricity Market Reform support past 2020, so there is a question in our minds over the long-term commitment of the UK government to support offshore wind.” ■
OffshOrE wInd
The strike price levels are quite attractive compared to the Netherlands or Belgium, so I’m positive. We have more concerns about the limited pot of money, with £7.6 billion available in 2020 on an annual basis. We need to understand whether there is room for our projects by that time.
“
”
24
Interviews & analysis
cEltIc array’s 2.2 Gw rhIannOn wInd farm tO cOmE OnlInE In 500 mw staGEs
Jessica Mills-Davies
Celtic Array, a joint venture between Centrica and DONG Energy, will build the Rhiannon Wind Farm 19 kilometres off Welsh island Anglesey’s coast in multiple 500 MW stages, Clean Energy Pipeline has learned.
The wind farm is the first project proposed for the Irish Sea Zone concession that Celtic Array won in a Crown Estate bidding round in 2010. The project is expected to comprise up to 440 wind turbines and reach up to 2.2 GW of capacity.
“[The Celtic Array wind farm] will connect directly into the national grid if everything gets consent,” National Grid’s External Affairs Manager Chris Isaac told Clean Energy Pipeline in a telephone interview.
Celtic Array has signed grid connection agreements with National Grid to connect approximately 2 GW of grid capacity from the project to the electricity transmission system on the Isle of Anglesey. Isaac said the joint venture has an additional agreement in place to link the rest of the project’s capacity to another connection.
Neither the wind farm, nor the grid infrastructure, has yet secured planning consent. Celtic Array said in the spring that it intends to submit planning applications for the Rhiannon project in 2014.
Isaac confirmed that National Grid was working to secure consent for a grid connection and substation in North Wales that will connect the Rhiannon project, together with a nuclear plant and additional Irish onshore and offshore wind capacity. Part of the job will be to reinforce existing grid infrastructure in the region.
“The [contracted] Celtic Array dates are 2017 to 2018,” Isaac said. “It comes on in 500 MW stages.”
Isaac explained that it is unusual for a grid connection to be built for renewable energy projects alone, with the exception of the recently agreed
Mid Wales connection. It is particularly rare for new transmission networks to be built in regions such as North Wales that are already served by national grid infrastructure.
“[The North Wales connection will] be for Celtic Array, plus nuclear, plus Irish offshore and onshore wind that will have a connection agreement to come to shore in North Wales,” he said. “There’s usually a combination of different generators when reinforcing or building a new connection.
“If it was just Celtic Array, we probably wouldn’t build anything, but because there is nuclear coming on as well we will build some other connection.”
The Celtic Array connection is due to be implemented in 2017 or 2018, in time to support the offshore wind farm, though the nuclear energy project timeline is longer.
“We’ve got an agreement and are working towards that agreement, but all of these things require consent and no one can rely on getting consent on the date they think they are getting it,” said Isaac.
He explained that the request for the Celtic Array connection did not
have to go through a district network operator because the necessary 400 kV connection was already in place at the Anglesey substation.
“If you’re a much bigger generator, you’d tend to have a direct agreement with us because you’d need the 400kV connection,” he said.
“[The Celtic Array projects] will come ashore into a substation that will share with them and we’ll build the connection to our existing network in Anglesey, which is 400kV, so it won’t involve a DNO at all.”
National Grid only builds transmission infrastructure for commercial reasons in response to requests from project developers and DNOs, and does not identify gaps in the transmission system, according to Isaac.
“They come up with their own scheme about where they want generation and if it is a viable project we have an obligation to connect them,” he said.
“It’s both [DNOs and project developers] that come to us. Whether a DNO can connect a large wind farm [individually] depends on how much generation there is.” ■
CTEF Ad London outl.pdf 9/30/2013 3:47:55 PM
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CTEF Ad London outl.pdf 9/30/2013 3:47:55 PM
26
Interviews & analysis
14th Forum Solarpraxis Berlin, Germany, 21 – 22 November 2013
Politics and Markets: power generation for private use, e� ects on power trading Financing and Marketing: Direct marketing, development of new customer segments System integration: Network stability, energy, storage, grid network development and integration
Contact: Tina Barroso, [email protected]
www.solarpraxis.de
Phot
o: C
opyr
ight
SM
A So
lar T
echn
olog
y AG
Publ
ished
Oct
ober
201
3
Powered by
With Support of
Gold Sponsors
Silver Sponsors
Networking Sponsor
Lanyard Sponsor
Media Partners
Solarpraxis-Conferences successfully combine cur-rent relevant topics of the PV industry, high-proile experts with e� cient networking.
Andrea Bodenhagen, EMEA Marketing Director CSUN“The Forum Solarpraxis has been a xed date for me for years. The informal hallway talks are extremely productive and the CEO panel is a highlight.
Richard Verdezki, ABB Automation Products, Director Segment Solar“
clEan EnErGy InVEstmEnt falls tO fOur-yEar lOw In 3q13
Rob Lavine
Renewable energy project finance, venture capital and private equity investment dipped to a four-year low in 3Q 2013, though a spate of large initial public offerings drove a resurgence in public market deals, according to figures compiled by Clean Energy Pipeline.
New investment in clean energy during 2Q13 fell 20% year-on-year from $58.8 billion to $47 billion, a 9% fall from 2Q13 and the lowest quarterly investment since 2Q09. A decline in total project and asset finance was a big factor in that decline, dwindling from $31.4 billion in 3Q12 to $24.7 billion in the corresponding period this year.
Wind accounted for 50% of the project finance secured during the quarter and solar 37%, with biomass and biofuels jointly comprising 9%. However, solar accounted for 54% of the number of deals, compared to wind which represented 32%.
A significant part of this decline is due to a decrease in North American and Asian project finance, where investment has fallen
sharply in both regions since 2012. North American project finance fell to its lowest level since 1Q09 and although European project finance is remaining relatively steady, this has not been enough to stop the slump.
Public markets activity was more vibrant. The $3.1 billion secured by clean energy companies in 3Q13 was 23% less than the $4 billion in 2Q13 but this was nevertheless more than double the $1.5 billion quarterly average recorded in 2012.
The reason for the increase is the amount of substantial clean energy IPOs recorded during the quarter. Four IPOs above $300 million were closed in 3Q13, three of which
were offerings of bundled renewable energy generation assets. Public markets activity is yet to return to the high numbers of 2010 and 2011 but the 2Q13 and 3Q13 results together represent the highest six-month figure since 3Q11.
M&A activity in the clean energy sector fell from $18.3 billion in 2Q13 to $8.9 billion in 3Q13. Significantly, there were five M&A transactions in 2Q13 that were higher than the biggest deal recorded in 3Q13 – Darling International’s $645 million acquisition of rendering and biodiesel company Rothsay.
Despite the fall in overall M&A deal value, deal numbers remained steady and increased 2% from 2Q13 to 261, a number that is well above the 2012 average.
Venture capital and private equity investment in the clean energy sector (excluding buyouts) in 3Q13 echoed project finance in falling to $1.0 billion, its lowest level since before 2009. The $1.0 billion figure marks a 58% year-on-year decline and a 39% fall from the preceding quarter, while the number of VC and PE deals decreased to the lowest level since 2Q10.
There are no signs that project finance will make a big recovery in 4Q13, though it is likely to be boosted when the preferred bidders from the third window of South Africa’s renewable energy procurement programme are announced later this month. Public markets activity looks set to remain high, with Meridian Energy, SunEdison, REC Solar and the Foresight Group all set to complete large IPOs, but the clean energy sector will need a more concerted resurgence if it is to once more scale the heights of investment reached in 2011 and 2012. ■
statIstIcs and trEnds
clean Energy Public markets 1Q09 to 3Q13
Source: Clean Energy Pipeline / VB/Research Ltd.
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
1Q08
2Q08
3Q08
4Q08
1Q09
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3Q09
4Q09
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1Q11
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3Q12
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IPO Secondary Convertible
27
14th Forum Solarpraxis Berlin, Germany, 21 – 22 November 2013
Politics and Markets: power generation for private use, e� ects on power trading Financing and Marketing: Direct marketing, development of new customer segments System integration: Network stability, energy, storage, grid network development and integration
Contact: Tina Barroso, [email protected]
www.solarpraxis.de
Phot
o: C
opyr
ight
SM
A So
lar T
echn
olog
y AG
Publ
ished
Oct
ober
201
3
Powered by
With Support of
Gold Sponsors
Silver Sponsors
Networking Sponsor
Lanyard Sponsor
Media Partners
Solarpraxis-Conferences successfully combine cur-rent relevant topics of the PV industry, high-proile experts with e� cient networking.
Andrea Bodenhagen, EMEA Marketing Director CSUN“The Forum Solarpraxis has been a xed date for me for years. The informal hallway talks are extremely productive and the CEO panel is a highlight.
Richard Verdezki, ABB Automation Products, Director Segment Solar“
28
Interviews & analysis
GlOBal wastE cOnVErsIOn cOmPany tarGEts stratEGIc tEchnOlOGy acquIsItIOns
Ronan Murphy
Canada-based waste-to-energy and wastewater treatment services group Anaergia Inc. will use part of a recent C$47.5 million growth equity round to acquire complementary technologies, the company’s Chief Executive Officer Steve Watzeck told Clean Energy Pipeline.
Anaergia is a supplier of proprietary anaerobic digestion-based technology and turnkey plants in the waste-to-energy, biogas, wastewater treatment and biosolids management sectors. It also builds, owns and operates its own projects in North America.
Its main markets aside from North America are Europe and Asia, where it has headquarters just outside Munich, Germany, and in Singapore respectively.
One year after Anaergia was formed in 2007 it acquired UTS Technologies, a Germany-based provider of AD solutions that has supplied more than 1,500 biogas projects over more than 20 years. In 2010, Anaergia purchased Idaho-based wastewater treatment systems supplier Pharma Engineering, which it followed in 2011 with the takeover of Oklahoma-based AD contract operations and process optimisation company The Stover Group.
Earlier this month, Anaergia raised C$47.5 million ($45.48 million) through a private placement, attracting new investors including Macquarie Capital, Tandem Expansion Fund, Export Development Canada and Global H2O Investment.
“We are using the capital as equity for projects we are developing, primarily in North America, and to do some strategic acquisitions of complementary technologies,” said Watzeck in an interview. “We are focused on becoming a total solutions provider. The third way we’ll use the funds will be for internal organic growth such as increasing internal manufacturing capacity and growing our global footprint.
“Our primary M&A focus is on unique complementary technologies, but we
BIOmass are also open to acquisitions that give us access to market segments or geographies faster than if we did it organically.”
In both Europe and Asia, Anaergia is expanding from its traditional core markets of agricultural waste conversion to address municipal solid waste and food waste more directly.
“Europe has historically been an agricultural market, with the high energy crop segment in Germany, Italy and Eastern Europe,” said Watzeck. “The growing part of the business is really food waste, primarily in the UK, and we think MSW is an interesting industry as well. Upgrading wastewater plants in Europe so they have efficient AD will also be important.”
Anaergia is expanding into the UK through a partnership with TEG Group plc, an organic waste management and renewable energy business. Anaergia’s technology was used in a 700 kW anaerobic digestion facility installed last year at a TEG waste processing plant in Perthshire, Scotland.
The Canadian company’s solution will also be utilised at a TEG plant in Dagenham, London, which will process 30,000 tonnes of food waste per year into 1.4 MW of renewable energy. TEG closed £21 million of financing for the project in September 2012, attracting £11 million backing from funds managed by Foresight Group.
“We think the UK is a very interesting market given the interest to divert organics from landfills,” said Watzeck. “There is lots of waste there that can still be processed. The UK is playing a little bit of catch-up [compared to other Western European countries] but the strong regulatory environment makes for a good market.”
In Asia, Anaergia is focused strongly on China, where it sees municipal solid waste and wastewater treatment, and sludge treatment in particular, as major growth segments.
In North America, the company will continue to expand its buy-own-operate model to encompass projects of increasingly greater sizes up to $100 million. Watzeck said Anaergia is able to finance its North American projects through a mixture of equity and bonds.
Anaergia’s longer term targets include an expansion to new geographies and a potential public market flotation.
“Our goal is to be a major global company, the leader in organic waste conversion for renewable energy, fertiliser and water re-use” said Watzeck. “We will likely do an IPO in the future. We are also looking at other global markets and will selectively and systematically expand our global footprint.” ■
29
sOlar GrId stOraGE tO raIsE $50 mIllIOn fund In nExt 12 mOnths
Rob Lavine
Solar Grid Storage plans to raise a $50 million fund to finance the installation of its solar energy storage systems in the next 12 months and will look to raise additional equity after that, Chief Executive Officer Tom Leyden told Clean Energy Pipeline.
Pennsylvania-based Solar Grid Storage installs battery systems that can store the energy generated by small-scale photovoltaic installations. The company currently works from a fund of about $3 million but will begin raising a larger fund in the next year and intends to utilise tax
EnErGy stOraGE equity, much like the funds raised by large solar installation companies. It is also planning to target prominent banks for investment.
“We’re doing what the solar industry has done,” Leyden explained. “We’re looking to set up a fund which would facilitate the speed and velocity at which we do projects.
“This is a new concept and a new model so some of the traditional funding sources for PV projects would be shy about it, so we feel in the early stages we’ll be going [to] more dedicated renewable energy/sustainability funds. But to do the kind of volume we want to do, we need to tap into bigger banks.”
Initially, Solar Grid Storage is financing the storage systems separately from the PV portion of the installations, but Leyden
predicted that in future it will probably make more sense for the business to work off a single fund. The company is currently in talks with investment funds over an investment structure that would finance both sides of the installation.
“You could conceivably use the same fund,” Leyden said. “It’s just a matter of the returns to the investor, what their comfort level is and the rules of the particular fund. It would be better for us to have the flexibility to fund the entire project – that would help the solar industry, particularly the companies that are less than Tier One, where financing is a little harder to retain.”
Although it is possible to retrofit the storage technology to existing installations, Solar Grid Storage is concentrating on new systems due to its technology incorporating a dual-use inverter that would need to replace the existing inverter on an existing system. It is working through its pipeline and its initial customers are mainly commercial, though it is also installing in public buildings such as schools where a storage capability enables the company’s systems to act as emergency centres in any power outage.
“We have four projects installed right now, the fifth one will be installed in Q1, and the sixth is scheduled to be installed in Q2,” Leyden said.
In addition to the project finance fund, the company expects to raise a Series A equity round in the next 12 to 18 months that will likely be set at between $10 million and $20 million. It expects the solar energy storage market to grow slowly before ramping up once the rest of the energy industry comes on board.
“I’d say we’re very much like the PV industry 10 years ago where there was just a lot of interest, a lot of excitement and it took time to sway the industry to gain some momentum,” Leyden stated. “We’re kind of in that position now with energy storage, but as the transformation of the utility industry [progresses] to more distributed generation, it does give you a much greater demand for storage.
“In light of the benefits of doing PV plus storage, which is probably the best way to get storage into the distribution network, we think there’s going to be a lot of interest in the next three to five years and after that it will become a standard feature.” ■
Interviews & analysis
30
Interviews & analysis
charGEPOInt tO ExPlOrE ExtErnal fInancInG fOr nExt EV charGInG lEasE fund
Rob Lavine
California-based electric vehicle charging infrastructure developer ChargePoint is planning to explore the possibility of tax equity financing for its charging station leasing programme if its initial $100 million fund proves successful, Vice President of Marketing Dimitrios Papadogonas told Clean Energy Pipeline.
ChargePoint announced a $100 million leasing fund in partnership with equipment finance provider Key Equipment Finance last week called the Net+ Purchase Plan, which will work in a similar way to the extremely successful residential solar leasing model, which allows customers to install the equipment for free and then pay for it in instalments.
Key Equipment Finance is providing the entire $100 million, but ChargePoint will look to attract external investors for a second stage of the programme, Papadogonas confirmed, and ChargePoint will investigate the possibility of harnessing a tax equity provision similar to the Investment Tax Credit that has spurred the growth of residential and small-scale commercial solar installation in recent years.
“We would be looking to do that as a sort of Phase Two,” Papadogonas said. “We want to establish that there is demand for this type of leasing product in the EV infrastructure industry. Once we do that, we’ll start exploring [something similar to] what solar has done in leveraging tax credits.
“Once this $100 million fund is depleted of course we would re-up on the programme and put in more, perhaps even larger than $100 million,” he added.” But we also want to do something that is similar to what solar has done and really look at ways of bringing in partners, like a tax equity player, and get more leverage out of this so we can provide the infrastructure for an even lower amount of money to the buyer.”
The initial charging scheme is being launched across the US and ChargePoint
GrEEn transPOrtatIOn currently expects to have exhausted the initial $100 million commitment in one to two years. The company currently has almost 14,000 charge spots across the country and expects to install between 10,000 and 20,000 additional stations through the plan, chiefly targeting businesses that want to install charging as a perk for their employees.
“We are really targeting the lease to the verticals and the customer segments that we think will most benefit from this product,” Papadogonas said. “That means small to medium-sized companies and municipalities.
“The same barriers for putting in charging infrastructure are there but in terms of deploying this particular plan, it tears barriers down. It removes the huge upfront cost because you can roll installation into the lease. You’re literally
operating your charging [system] for a few dollars a day.”
ChargePoint expects to grow further in the future as the EV charging sector expands and EVs become more widely used. As that happens, Papadogonas predicted, the smaller and less successful operators will fall away, while more established companies may well look to enter the sector.
“The market is growing incredibly fast, at high double digits growth per year,” he stated. “We’ve moved out of the early adopter market and now we’re moving into a viable market. At ChargePoint we’ve been successful because our model from day one was built with a market focus. We will sell a market and a service to customers in the private sector who will pay for our service without the benefit of financing from the government.
“If new players come into the market, they [will] want to see how the market goes and how it develops, let the market become profitable and see who the dominant players are. Then they figure out at that point whether to build something that competes against them or to just buy one of them.” ■
Global Venture capital & Private Equity Investment 1Q09 to 3Q13
Source: Clean Energy Pipeline / VB/Research Ltd.
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
Num
ber o
f deals
Dea
l val
ue ($
bill
ion)
VC - Early Growth (Series A to C) VC - Late Stage (Series D+) PE - Development Capital Number of deals
We’ve moved out of the early adopter market and now we’re moving into a viable market.“ ”
31
Interviews & analysis
ElEVancE tarGEts $200 mIllIOn dEBt, EquIty raIsE tO fInancE nEw BIOrEfInErIEs
Jessica Mills-Davies
US specialty chemicals company Elevance Renewable Sciences Inc. plans to raise approximately $200 million in debt and equity to finance new biorefineries it plans to build in South America and Asia, Executive VP of Sales and Market Development Andy Shafer told Clean Energy Pipeline.
Shafer said in an interview that Elevance is in talks to invest in several new biorefineries in South America and Asia on top of the two it already owns in Gresik, Indonesia, and Natchez, Mississippi. All of Elevance’s chemicals use renewable feedstocks and its biorefineries run on renewable oils.
“I can envision at least one, maybe two more [plants],” he said. “Elevance has raised approximately $300 million since inception and we will continue to raise capital to fund our growth as we go into 2014 and beyond.
“I would expect it would be significant and a mix of debt and equity that we would be looking to structure into the company.”
Elevance said in a statement in October that it will convert its Natchez biodiesel plant into a biorefinery capable of producing renewable oils, chemicals and biofuels by 2016. Shafer reported strong market demand from its customers as being the impetus behind the new plant.
The company has invested about $30 million into the Natchez facility out of
BIOchEmIcals a planned $225 million investment it intends to make in multiple phases of development at the facility.
The Natchez plant will incorporate Elevance’s metathesis technology and use rapeseed or soybean oil as a feedstock. It may, in the future, use jatropha or algae oils as they become more commercially available.
Shafer confirmed that the company will continue to invest a “substantial amount” in developing the Natchez facility into a biorefinery and derivatives operation, but how quickly it makes the investments will depend on the pace at which it secures financing and how quickly it can secure long-lead equipment contracts and permits.
The company also plans to invest further capital into its only operating biorefinery in Gresik. It made the first commercial shipments from the Indonesian biorefinery, a joint venture between Elevance and Wilmar International, in July.
“The likelihood is [we will continue] to build biorefineries [that] are world-scale like the ones in Gresik or Natchez,” said Shafer. “That scale of facility continues to be a scale that makes the most sense. We will tailor [the plants] according to the specifics that emerge at each site.”
Elevance could even look to the public markets for extra capital if they offer the potential to be more capital-efficient than private money. It shelved a planned IPO in September 2012, months after completing a $104 million Series E round, due to adverse equity market conditions.
“As markets changed last year the private markets became more interesting and we ended up raising private funding,” Shafer said.
“As we look forward to 2014, we will continue to look at accessing capital from both debt and equity markets and we will look at the appropriate mix and cost of capital. If the public markets are compelling relative to private markets, we will be looking at the public markets. If it continues that private money is more efficient, then we will access private money.”
Elevance’s existing investors include PPG Capital funds and strategic investors such as Genting and Total Energy Ventures, a subsidiary of the French oil giant Total SA.
“There is a mix of private equity and strategic investors today and I expect that would likely continue,” said Shafer. “[Now that] we’re beyond the small investors range, there are people that want to participate in a fairly significant round.” ■
Elevance has raised approximately $300 million since inception and we will continue to raise capital to fund our growth as we go into 2014 and beyond.
“”
32
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headlines
Policy & regulation › CALIFORNIA SIGNS SHARED RENEWABLES
BILL SB 43 INTO LAW
› UK PM CAMERON PLEDGES TO ROLL BACK GREEN REGULATIONS TO CURB ELECTRICITY PRICE HIKES
› BRAZIL SETS $58 PER MWH CEILING PRICE FOR A-3 ENERGY AUCTION
› NORWAY’S NEW COALITION TO END GRID MONOPOLY, BOOST RENEWABLES AND GAS
› UK TARGETS EIGHTFOLD INCREASE IN SOLAR PV BY 2020, SAYS MINISTER BARKER
› SPAIN PROPOSES NEW TAX ON SOLAR PRODUCERS
› CALIFORNIA REGULATOR INTRODUCES 1.325 GW ENERGY STORAGE TARGET
› GERMANY’S GREENS RULE OUT COALITION WITH MERKEL
› UK AGREES COMMERCIAL TERMS FOR FIRST NUCLEAR PLANT SINCE 1995
› CHILE TO INTRODUCE ANNUAL RENEWABLE ENERGY TENDERS
corporate & Industrial news › BORD NA MÓNA LAUNCHES EUR1 BILLION
WIND ENERGY EXPORT BUSINESS
› MACQUARIE, MAEDA INK DEAL FOR $1 BILLION JAPANESE SOLAR JV
› SIEMENS CONSORTIUM SELECTED FOR US ARMY’S $7 BILLION RENEWABLES PROGRAMME
› ERG TO INVEST EUR500 MILLION IN RENEWABLES BY 2015
› ENEL GREEN POWER WINS CONTRACTS FOR 513 MW OF PROJECTS IN SOUTH AFRICAN RENEWABLES TENDER
› PSO SIGNS PPAS FOR 600 MW OF OKLAHOMA WIND
› VERGNET COMMISSIONS AFRICA'S LARGEST WIND FARM IN ETHIOPIA
› SUZLON RECORDS $128 MILLION QUARTERLY LOSS AS REVENUES FALL 16% YEAR-ON-YEAR
› GREEN DEAL FAILURE FORCES CARILLION TO RESTRUCTURE ENERGY SERVICES BUSINESS
› SOLARCITY SHARES SPIKE AFTER IT PREDICTS A 70% INCREASE IN INSTALLATIONS NEXT YEAR
› GERONIMO ENERGY SECURES PPA FOR 400 MW NEBRASKA WIND FARM
› FIRST SOLAR TO BUILD 250 MW SOLAR PLANT ON BEHALF OF NEXTERA ENERGY RESOURCES
› LONG ISLAND POWER AUTHORITY ISSUES RFP FOR 280 MW OF RENEWABLES
› SINOVEL FORECASTS FULL-YEAR NET LOSS
fund Intelligence › CLEANTECH VC MITHRIL CAPITAL
MANAGEMENT RAISES $540 MILLION FOR DEBUT FUND
› BRIDGES VENTURES CLOSES THIRD SUSTAINABLE GROWTH FUND ON £125 MILLION
› ESTCAPITAL LAUNCHES RENEWABLES FUND CAPPED AT EUR200 MILLION
› BROOKFIELD CLOSES INFRA AND RENEWABLES FUND ON $7 BILLION
› AMBIENTA REACHES EUR147 MILLION FIRST CLOSE FOR SECOND ENVIRONMENT FUND
Venture capital & Private Equity › BLACKSTONE’S VIVINT RAISES $540
MILLION
› MARUBENI CLOSES EUR100 MILLION INVESTMENT IN MAINSTREAM RENEWABLE
› ERECYCLING NETS $105 MILLION IN SERIES C
› SILICON WAFER PRODUCER 1366 TECHNOLOGIES RAISES $15 MILLION SERIES C
› ELECTRIC BUS MAKER PROTERRA CLOSES $24 MILLION SERIES C ROUND
› GDF SUEZ ACQUIRES MINORITY STAKE IN ONEROOF ENERGY
› CLEANER ENGINE DEVELOPER ACHATES POWER RAISES $35 MILLION IN SERIES C ROUND
› ENERGY-SAVING SOFTWARE PLATFORM ECOFACTOR SECURES $10 MILLION IN SERIES B ROUND
› GREENWAVE REALITY RAISES $19 MILLION SERIES B
Project & asset finance › KFW TO INVEST EUR654 MILLION IN
OUARZAZATE CSP COMPLEX
› CONTINENTAL WIND CLOSES $613 MILLION OF NON-RECOURSE PROJECT FINANCE
› ABENGOA CLOSES $570 MILLION IN FINANCE FOR SOLAR THERMAL PLANTS
› INFINIS REFINANCES 274 MW WIND PORTFOLIO WITH £329.5 MILLION LOAN PACKAGE
› REYKJAVIK GEOTHERMAL FORMS PROJECT COMPANY FOR $4 BILLION ETHIOPIAN PROJECT, RAISES FIRST $40 MILLION
› STANDARD BANK AND NORFUND TO PROVIDE $150 MILLION FOR KENYAN WIND PROJECT
› CPFL RENOVAVEIS TO BORROW $240 MILLION TO FINANCE BRAZILIAN WIND PORTFOLIO
› RWE TO SEEK FINANCIAL INVESTMENT PARTNERS FOR NEW RENEWABLE ENERGY PROJECTS
› GOOGLE INVESTS $103 MILLION IN 266 MW MOUNT SIGNAL SOLAR PLANT
› KIOR RAISES $100 MILLION EQUITY PORTION OF COLUMBUS II FINANCING
› MEXICAN HYGIENE COMPANY PI MABE TO INVEST $120 MILLION IN WIND FARM
mergers & acquisitions › GOLDMAN SACHS, DANISH PENSION
FUNDS TO BUY 26% STAKE IN DONG ENERGY FOR $2 BILLION
› GDF SELLS 28% STAKE IN AUSTRALIAN POWER ASSETS TO MITSUI
› SOLARCITY TO PAY $158 MILLION FOR ZEP SOLAR
› SHUNFENG PHOTOVOLTAIC BIDS TO ACQUIRE WUXI SUNTECH
› NRG STRIKES DEAL TO ACQUIRE EDISON MISSION ENERGY FOR $2.64 BILLION
› EDP RENOVÁVEIS SELLS 49% STAKE IN 100 MW OF FRENCH WIND FARMS
› CAPSTONE CLOSES RENEWABLE ENERGY DEVELOPERS ACQUISITION
› VESTAS SELLS MACHINING, CASING UNITS TO VTC PARTNERS
› BLUEFIELD SOLAR INCOME FUND BUYS FIVE NEW ENGLISH PV PROJECTS
› RECURRENT ENERGY SELLS 86 MW OF ONTARIO SOLAR TO METLIFE AND FIERA AXIUM
› ENERSYS TO BUY ADVANCED BATTERY DEVELOPER QUALLION FOR $30 MILLION
Public markets › TERRA FIRMA'S INFINIS TO IPO IN
NOVEMBER
› SOLARCITY TO RAISE $358 MILLION FROM SHARE AND BOND OFFERINGS
› FORESIGHT GROUP RAISES £150 MILLION FROM SOLAR FUND IPO
› MERIDIAN IPO EXPECTED TO FETCH $1.58 BILLION
› ABENGOA PRICES EUR450 MILLION SHARE OFFERING
› HUANENG RENEWABLES RAISES NET $200 MILLION FROM SHARE SALE
› SHUNFENG PV COMPLETES $144 MILLION SHARE PLACEMENT
› SAUDI UTILITY ACWA TO ISSUE $800 MILLION SUKUK, IPO IN 2014
› AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT BANK RAISES $500 MILLION FROM INAUGURAL GREEN BOND
OctOBEr 2013 In BrIEf Top headlines this month selected from Clean Energy Pipeline’s news archive
34
Interviews & analysis
Register now! Space is limited: www.cop19.org
Climate Action, in partnership with United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), hosts the Sustainable Innovation Forum. The event will be one of the largest and most influential business summits alongside the COP19 process. World leaders and climate change experts from business, government, the financial community and international NGOs will discuss business involvement in climate solutions.
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Join C-level executives, government representatives and third sector organisations for the pivotal business forum alongside the COP19 process.
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35
november 2013
› renewableuK 2013 5th November - 7th November 2013 Birmingham, UK
› telco Energy & Infrastructure Efficiency 11th November - 13th November 2013 London, UK
› waste to wealth 11th November - 13th November 2013 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
› Global cleantech meetup 12th November - 14th November 2013 Boston, MA, USA
› Sustainable Innovation Forum 20 November 2013 Warsaw, Poland
› Green Building china 2013 21st November - 22nd November 2013 Shanghai, China
december 2013
› caribbean tourism: the Energy forum 10th December - 11th Decemeber 2013 Punta Cana, Dominican Republic
january 2014
› world future Energy summit 2014 20th January - 21st January 2014 Abu Dhabi, UAE
february 2014
› Corporate Venturing & Innovation Partnering conference (16th annual) 10th February - 12th February 2014 Newport Beach, CA, USA
› middle East Electricity 11th February - 13th February 2014 Dubai, UAE
› solar middle East 11th February - 13th February 2014 Dubao, UAE
Events
march 2014
› cleanEquity monaco 2014 27th March - 28th March 2014 Monaco
april 2014
› the 8th china International wind Energy Exhibition and conference 8th April - 10th April 2014 Shanghai, China
› 2014 china International Bioenergy and Biomass Utilization Summit (BBS 2014) 23rd April - 25th April 2014 Shanghai, China
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