Solar energy firms are getting creative in raising funds

[unhappycamper]

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-solar-investing-20140116,0,942850.story



SolarCity employees install solar panels on a West Los Angeles home in 2009. Solar firms have a difficult time persuading banks to fund their projects.

Solar energy firms are getting creative in raising funds
By Shan Li and Stuart Pfeifer
January 16, 2014, 5:00 a.m.

Solar installer SolarCity Corp. has figured out a way to tap retail investors willing to earn green by going green.

The San Mateo company on Wednesday said it plans to offer a way to buy investment products similar to bonds. Instead of being backed by SolarCity, these securities would offer returns backed by solar projects and contracts the company has with customers who have panels installed on their roof.

This is just one in a number of novel ways that solar power companies, many just start-ups, are finding ways to finance their businesses.

Solar developers often have a difficult time persuading traditional banks to fund smaller-scale projects, analysts said. Many investment firms are unfamiliar with the risks of solar and unwilling to wait out the payout period, which can take decades.

[canoeist52]

1. +1 for any economic enterprise program that by-passes the banks.

[FBaggins]

2. Making a loan that a bank is unwilling to make...

... is a pretty risky business.

[kristopher]

3. Danish Pension Fund To Invest in Renewable Energy Projects in Developing Nations

Danish Pension Fund To Invest in Renewable Energy Projects in Developing Nations
- Sally Bakewell and Mathew Carr, Bloomberg

January 13, 2014

LONDON -- PensionDanmark A/S and other Danish pension investors backed a state fund to finance emission-reduction projects in developing countries as the Scandinavian nation seeks to export its climate know-how abroad.

The Danish Climate Investment Fund received 1.2 billion kroner ($220 million) in commitments from private investors and the government, according to PensionDanmark, which contributed 200 million kroner. The fund will invest on commercial terms in projects that tackle climate change in emerging economies from Africa to Asia, PensionDanmark said in an e-mailed statement.

The initiative follows a United Nations pledge in 2009 to raise capital in richer countries for environmental projects in developing nations. Delegates at UN talks that year agreed to ramp up climate aid to an annual $100 billion by 2020, including private-sector cash. Danish companies have long invested in clean-power projects at home, where the share of wind power in the energy mix is set to almost double by the end of the decade.

“The Climate Investment Fund is a brand new type of public-private partnership in which government funding and private pension investments are allied in making the most of the expertise of Danish companies in the climate and energy sector,” PensionDanmark Chief Executive Officer Torben Moger Pedersen said in today’s statement.

Fund Yield

The fund must invest in emission-reduction projects with a Danish financial interest such as a co-investor or technology supplier, according to PensionDanmark, which has 642,000 members. It will yield ...

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2014/01/danish-pension-fund-to-invest-in-renewable-energy-projects-in-developing-nations?cmpid=GeoNL-Thursday-January16-2014