

Currents
Norton Rose Fulbright
Currents is a podcast published by Norton Rose Fulbright that features in-depth discussions on the latest developments in project finance. The podcast is hosted by partner Todd Alexander, who interviews key business leaders and policy makers to investigate important trends affecting the energy and infrastructure space.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Mar 15, 2021 • 15min
Ep149: 2020 Lendscape Update: The Refinancing Boom
Richard Matsui, CEO of kWh Analytics, joins us for an update on the Solar Lendscape. He covers what is new in tax equity, gives a breakdown of three trends he is seeing on the lender side and an update on the underperformance of solar projects that was uncovered in the Solar Generation Index, explains how underperformance might affect refinancing and more.

Mar 11, 2021 • 60min
Ep148: Hydrogen: The next frontier
Close to 4,000 people registered to listen to a discussion among three experts about the prospects for hydrogen. Interest is particularly high in green hydrogen, which is expected to play a significant role as the US moves rapidly to decarbonize. Sheldon Kimber, CEO and founder of Intersect Power, Karen Lee, senior counsel for commercial law at the Southern California Gas Company, and Sanjay Shrestha, chief strategy officer of Plug Power, talked with Jim Berger and Deanne Barrow with Norton Rose Fulbright.

Mar 8, 2021 • 24min
Ep147: Competition in the Battery Storage Market
Eren Ergin, general manager of renewables and distributed assets at Honeywell, joins us to talk about stationary battery storage. We discuss what Honeywell is doing in the market, how it has created a business unit focusing on storage, how it believes it can compete and succeed long-term, how remote operation centers tie into asset management, safety concerns for projects, misconceptions about battery storage in the infrastructure investment community and much more.

Mar 1, 2021 • 24min
Ep146: What's Next in C&I Solar
Richard Walsh, managing partner at Madison Energy Investments, joins us to talk about trends he is seeing in the C&I solar market. We get into the best state markets for C&I solar and emerging markets, how storage is becoming part of projects, how investors can keep track of the different markets despite the rapid pace of change, how the corporate push for renewable energy has affected C&I solar, how retail energy providers play a role in deregulated state electricity markets and more.

Feb 23, 2021 • 23min
Ep145: Recycling Lithium Batteries
Kunal Phalpher, CCO of Li-Cycle, joins us to talk about recycling lithium-ion batteries. We get into the size of the market, what is recycled out of the batteries, how much of the materials extracted can be used in new batteries, the impact the growing energy storage market will have on the need to recycle batteries and more.

Feb 15, 2021 • 30min
Ep144: Meet the DC Green Bank
Eli Hopson, CEO, and Jay Lurie, CIO, at the DC Green Bank join us to give an overview of the bank, why it was established and the goals it has set for itself. We discuss its available capital, priority sectors, how its financings are structured, the near-term opportunities and obstacles it sees, how private capital and service providers can start a discussion with the bank about working together and more.

Feb 8, 2021 • 27min
Ep143: The Current State of PPAs
Bryce Smith, CEO, and Rob Collier, vice president, developer relations of LevelTen Energy, join us to discuss the company and the current state of PPA offer prices and trends. We get into how the renewable energy industry has changed in the last decade, what they are seeing in the PPA market, Q4 data on solar and wind P50 prices, their forecast for 2021 and more.

Feb 1, 2021 • 20min
Ep142: Climate Adaptive Infrastructure
Bill Green, managing partner of Climate Adaptive Infrastructure, joins us to talk about the meaning of the firm’s name and its mandate. We get into how Climate Adaptive Infrastructure is different from typical infrastructure investors, how the firm is tackling the ‘triple threat risk’ of the climate crisis, examples of recent investments the firm has made, areas that it is targeting, the point at which it wants to invest in a project and more.

Jan 25, 2021 • 27min
Ep141: Leveraging Technology to Scale Clean Energy
Rudy Roy, CEO of HST, joins us to discuss the technology company’s mission of improving people’s lives by scaling clean energy. We discuss how HST has scaled its platform to have thousands of projects in over 100 countries, who the platform’s customers are, how its metasearch functionality works and applies to clean energy, how a software company can reduce a gigaton of carbon emissions, the challenges and opportunities he sees for global cooperation in the buildout of clean energy and more.

Jan 21, 2021 • 1h
Ep140: Cost of Capital: 2021 Outlook
Many developers struggled during 2020 to find tax equity. Economists expect growth to start slow and accelerate by year end. Interest rates remain low, but the yield curve is becoming steeper as the bond market takes into account the potential for future inflation. Listen to a discussion led by Keith Martin, partner at Norton Rose Fulbright, among John C.S. Anderson, global head of corporate finance and infrastructure at Manulife, Jean-Pierre Boudrias, managing director and head of project finance for North America at Goldman Sachs, Jack Cargas, managing director at Bank of America, Ralph Cho, co-head of the North American power and infrastructure group at Investec, and Yale Henderson, managing director at J.P.Morgan, about what to expect in the year ahead for tax equity, bank and term loan B debt and project bonds.


