Mayer Brown’s David K. Burton and Jeffrey G. Davis both Tax Transactions & Consulting partners and part of the firm’s Renewable Energy group co-hosted a heavily attended webinar on how tax reform is impacting the tax equity market and certain renewable energy structures with Vadim Ovchinnikov, CFA, CPA and Gintaras Sadauskas of Alfa Energy Advisors. Topics addressed, included: The latest industry trends such as, the feds raising interest rates; the increase in project M&A activity for both development and operating assets; plans for large offshore wind projects in several east coast states; changes in PPA’s and revenue models; compressed margins and why developers and investors are moving towards commercial and industrial (C&I) solar projects. Additional topics, included:
- New bonus depreciation rules and impact on tax equity transactions and modeling;
- Compressed financing margins for wind and solar;
- Strategies for “starting construction” to qualify for the maximum investment tax credit and rules for transferring safe harbored equipment between wind projects; and,
- An overview of HLBV GAAP accounting for tax equity investments as a challenge for public companies.
Over 480 clients and contacts registered for the co-hosted webinar. Due to the volume of interest and post-presentation questions, we would like to share the slides from the presentation: webinar presentation.
We are reviewing and preparing responses to all of the questions that were submitted electronically during the webinar. We will be sharing those questions with our answers in a subsequent blog post.