Currents

Silicon Valley Bank was placed into receivership on March 10. Tim Byrne, Eric Daucher and Tom Delaney join Todd Alexander to discuss what has unfolded for Silicon Valley Bank over the weekend and what it means for the project finance community. We discuss why a bridge bank would have been set up, if there are bankruptcy concerns for investors with funds in collateral accounts, depositors’ access to funds in their accounts, what existing borrowers may experience with additional extensions of credit and what we think will happen over the next 72 hours.

Four veteran tax equity investors and lenders talk about what to expect in the year ahead. The five are Jack Cargas, managing director and head of tax equity origination, Bank of America, Ralph Cho, co-head of power & infrastructure finance - US, EU and UK, Investec Group, Rubiao Song, managing director and head of energy investments, JPMorgan, and Elizabeth Waters, managing director - project finance Americas, MUFG. The moderator is Keith Martin in Washington.

Stefan Reisinger, partner in Washington, joins us to discuss the Department of Commerce’s preliminary determination of circumvention issues. We go over the general reaction to the order, which solar panels and cells are covered by the preliminary determination, the significance for the four companies found to be circumventing, the impact the determination will have on panels that have entered before the determination was issued and more.

Katherine Blunt, who covers renewable energy and utilities for The Wall Street Journal, talks to Keith Martin in Washington about her new book, California Burning: The Fall of Pacific Gas and Electric—and What it Means for America's Power Grid, on the challenges facing utilities with aging power lines in drought-stricken parts of the United States.

Five veteran Washington observers talk with Keith Martin in our Washington office about what the midterm election results mean for clean energy, storage, carbon capture, hydrogen and the project finance market. The five are Michael Catanzaro, president, CGCN group, and a former senior advisor to House Speaker John Boehner, John Gimigliano, principal-in-charge, federal tax legislative and regulatory services, KPMG, and a former House Ways and Means Committee tax counsel, Colin Hayes, partner, Lot Sixteen, and a former staff director of the Senate Energy Committee, Joe Mikrut, partner, Capitol Tax Partners, former Treasury tax legislative counsel and senior legislation counsel to the Joint Committee on Taxation, and Rob Rains, senior vice president and energy analyst, Washington Analysis.

Keith Martin, David Burton and Hilary Lefko have a lively discussion about the Inflation Reduction Act’s effect on deals. Some parts of the Inflation Reduction Act that passed the Senate are retroactive to the start of 2022. Other parts apply only to projects that are placed in service after this year. The bill is expected to clear the House this week. It will affect the tax equity market. It will affect construction and equipment procurement contracts.

Keith Martin gives a lively update on what is new in the market. The tax equity market is wrestling with a series of issues tied to inflation and construction delays. Developers forced for the same reasons to renegotiate power contracts are drawing interesting lessons. Rising electricity prices are affecting the economics of making green hydrogen, but hydrogen is coming and may prove more disruptive than appeared even a year ago.

Bob Shapiro, partner in Norton Rose Fulbright’s Washington office, joins us to discuss the new regulations in PJM and FERC rules being considered. We discuss how PJM is addressing their backlog, an overview of the two interconnection proposals, who the big winners and losers are, how the FERC proposal differs from the PJM regulations and more.

Jigar Shah, Director of the Department of Energy's Loan Program Office, joins us to discuss the mission of the program and what it is working on right now. We talk about the types of deals that are relevant for the office, what Jigar views as the sweet spot in terms of size and debt for a project, how the pricing works, where he sees the renewable market going in the next five years and more.

Stefan Reisinger, partner Norton Rose Fulbright’s Washington office, joins us for a closer look at the Biden action yesterday to shield solar panels imported from Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand and Cambodia during the next two years from any anti-circumvention duties that the Commerce Department decides to impose. We discuss the current Commerce investigation, how the Biden order will affect imported panels, what it means for current financings and more.