News Flash: Major Financing Deals and Acquisitions Highlight Growth and Consolidation in U.S. Wind Industry

This news flash covers major renewable energy project financing deals and acquisitions in the wind industry. Key points include Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners securing $1.2 billion in tax equity financing from major banks for the Vineyard Wind One offshore wind project. Energex Renewable Energy also secured $322 million in tax equity financing from J.P. Morgan and Capital One for its Boswell Springs wind farm. The deals allow the companies to receive significant cash upfront in exchange for future production tax credits. In mergers and acquisitions, Scotland-based Aurora Energy Services acquired Houston-based Cotech Group, a wind turbine blade maintenance company, to expand its service offerings and workforce in the U.S. The deals highlight the activity in renewable project financing and consolidation in the wind energy services sector. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard's StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes' YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Pardalote Consulting - https://www.pardaloteconsulting.comWeather Guard Lightning Tech - www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor - https://www.intelstor.com News Flash 103023 Allen Hall: I'm Allen Hall, president of Weather Guard Lightning Tech, and I'm here with the founder and CEO of Intelstor, Phil Totaro, and the chief commercial officer of Weather Guard Lightning Tech, Joel Saxum. And this is your News Flash. News Flash is brought to you by our friends at InterStor. If you need actionable information about renewable projects or technologies, check out InterStor at intelstor.com. Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners and Avangrid announced the largest single asset tax equity financing and first large scale offshore wind transaction in the United States for Vineyard Wind One' s project. The 1.2 billion tax equity investment was reached with JPMorgan, Chase, Bank of America, and of course, Wells Fargo. Alright, Phil. There's a lot of tax equity investment happening right now in wind. What does it mean?  Phil Totaro: Effectively, they are taking some cash, if not all of it, up front. In exchange for future production, tax, credit, revenue, and allowing the financiers to basically do that at a rate with an interest rate on top of it. So that, if they're giving CIP and Avangrid, 1.2 billion in cash now, presumably they're gonna be generating at least, 1.8 to 2 billion in PTC revenue in the future. And so the financial institutions collect that future revenue on kind of a, an annuity basis. And the developer gets cash up front to either reinvest in Greenfield project development or to bolster their balance sheet. Allen Hall: Canadian electricity producer, Energex Renewable Energy has secured a 322 million dollar tax equity investment for its 329 megawatt Boswell Springs wind project that is under construction in Wyoming. The upfront tax commitment was made by J. P. Morgan and Capital One, Energex said last week. The arrangement will see the investors provide cash payments as production tax credits are generated from the project over 10 years. Joel, it looks like they're going to receive about 420 million in a production tax credit over those 10 years, and they're taking in from the banks about 322 million now. How are they playing this swap of tax security? In the future for income now.  Joel Saxum: So what this is the 330 megawatt Boswell Springs project is going to cost about 583 million to build. Instead of having 583 million at say 7 percent over the course of however long that debt takes to pay off, instead of having that debt financing, they've exchanged some of that debt financing for tax equity financing, but at a different rate.