Because of the enormous popularity of last week’s post on green project finance–Let’s Make A Deal–Top 10 Rules Of Green Project Finance–I have decided to do a series on the various aspects of green project finance.
Today we will discuss alternative financing mechanisms for green projects. Over the
The first step to any green building or renewable energy project of any size is finding the financing to make it possible. Since the bottom fell out of the economy, finding investors and financial institutions willing to finance building projects of any sort has been close to impossible. Real estate finance prognosticators, however, indicate that
I have been tracking the green stimulus spending since June 2009. In November 2009, actual dollars spent on green projects was $1.5 billion. Now, in November 2010, dollars actually paid to date on green projects is approximately $11 billion. It amounts to approximately 7% of contract spending from the Stimulus bill
Recently there have been several cases of neighbors raising objections, valid or invalid, to green projects.
There was the Northland Pines case where community members challenged the LEED certification of a local high school. Recipients of smart meters sued the utilities claiming the smart meters wrongly measured their electricity use. Neighbors held up the Cape Wind offshore wind energy project for years. Neighbors even object to the placement of solar panels, most famously on Al Gore’s mansion in Tennessee.
I don’t know if it is Obama or Al Gore but the US government is starting to understand the need for sustainability. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 was signed into law by President Obama in February to stimulate the sagging US economy. By injecting $690 billion to improve infrastructure the authors hoped to create millions of jobs pulling the US out of the worst recession since the Great Depression. Interspersed within this $690 billion is $60 billion for green projects of which $45 billion is going specifically towards energy related programs. Within this $45 billion most will go directly towards the green building industry with some additional monies going towards large scale renewable energy production.