Loan Guarantee
July 6, 2011
Greece Referendum is set to become the hottest media topic related to the European Debt Crisis in the coming months.In a totally surprising move Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou called a referendum and a parliamentary confidence vote on 31st October just a week after the European leaders had agreed on a package to .Papandreou’s personal and government popularity have plunged amid fresh austerity measures that sparked a wave of social unrest.The PM is calling this vote probably to bolster his government as it loses support of the masses
July 5, 2011
1366 Technologies has got a $150 million DOE Loan Guarantee as the startup looks to raise $300 million to fund its solar wafer producing factory.Note the company is using an innovative technology which it says will be game changer in reducing the costs for making solar wafers.Note Solar Wafer Companies in China have managed to raise scale and reduce costs substantially in recent years winning marketshare from European companies like REC and Solarworld.The smaller companies like PV Crystalox are in deep trouble because of their high cost of operations and are trading at a fractional of their book value.Its a tough environment for solar companies especially if they are starting out as established solar panel companies like Evergreen Solar are facing potential bankruptcy.Evergreen Solar got millions of dollars in grants and loans from Massachusetts however the company has been forced to shut down its factory.Like 1366 Technologies Evergreen too uses a unique technology "String Ribbon" to producer solar wafers .However it has not been able to scale and reduce costs compared to the mainstream silicon solar wafer producers like LDK and GCL.
July 5, 2011
According to reports coming from Europe where the summit of major European leaders took place to resolve the growing debt crisis,a deal has been reached on Greek debt.The Euro 350 billion debt which dwarfs the size of the negatively growing Greek economy has been a major source of instability in the last 2 years.The private holders of the Greek government bonds have agreed to take a 50% writeoff on their holdings.This means that if they hold Euro 100 of bonds they have become Euro 50 now as the rest has been written off as bad debt.Not that it was not apparent as Greek CDS and Greek bonds were touching all times lows in the secondary market.In fact the only buyers of Greece bonds were the European Central Bank and the Greek banks.The capital markets had been going up in the last month in the hope of some sort of resolution.The deal does not look like a win win as there will be some big losers in this deal (though they were already losing for some time).Nicolas Sarkozy announced the deal which would be voluntary in nature so that the CDS would not be invoked.Here are the winners and losers from this deal
June 21, 2011
Bangladesh like India is a massive power deficient country with peak power shortage of aroudn 25% and more than 60% of the people in the country lacking access to the power grid.As prices of coal,oil and gas increase it has become harder to provide electricity to some of the poorest people in the world.Solar Energy is an ideal solution as it can provide gridless power,is totally clean in terms of pollution,health hazards and is economical as well since it saves money for building the electricity transmission.The Bangladesh government has itself realized this as the Prime Minister has put up a 21.6 Kw solar power system to power her office.The World Bank had put up $130 million in funding in 2003 which has resulted in more than 1 million homes being powered by solar energy.Note the requirements of power are very small almost 1/10th that of a Western home.Government owned Infrastructure Development Company (IDCOL) has been providing the financing for these small solar panel projects in the country.
May 1, 2011
NTPC,India's largest power generating utility with around 35 GW of electricity capacity is set to enter renewable energy in a big way as it has singed 500 MW of PPAs with state distribution companies for supplying green energy.Note India's electricity regulator CERC has mandated a 6% Renewable Purchase Obligation (RPO) in 2011 which will increase by 1% each year to 15% by 2020.A number of states have fallen behind in meeting their RPO and would need to either generate or buy Green Energy to meet the CERC targets for renewable energy.NTPC which is predominantly a thermal power utility has been planning to set up wind and solar power plants but nothing has been done till now.However after signing these PPA with the Madhya Pradesh,Orissa and Karnataka government,the renewable energy projects should get accelerated.
December 14, 2010
Asian Development Bank (ADB) may rescue the JNNSM process which seems to be headed for certain problems.The Bank is committing to provide loan guarantees for under 30 MW projects to Indian Banks and upto 25% equity investment into >30 MW projects.Note debt financing is a major issue which was talked about by the biggest Indian utilities for not participating.Note ADB has already committed to setting up 500 MW Renewable Energy Capacity in India in JV with NTPC.This will further increase ADB's exposure to Solar Energy in India.It remains to be seen if ADB give equity and debt to many of these projects which don't seem to be feasible at these prices.Will ADB willing to take losses in these ventures and provide loans to many of these unknown firms with no track record.
July 3, 2010
President Obama declared $1.85 Billion in Combined Loan Guarantees to Concentrated Solar Power Giant Abengoa and Cadmium Tellurium startup Abound Solar.These huge guarantees is nothing new […]
May 28, 2010
Solyndra has been the most hyped startup in the crowded Solar Energy field .It is not due to a lack of competition,another thin film player Nanosolar […]
May 10, 2010
The European leaders plan to blow away the Euro sceptics has been an outstanding “success” . The $971 billion plan by the EU,ECB and assorted central […]