New Episode of Resources Radio on Financing Wind Power
WASHINGTON, DC—Resources for the Future (RFF) today released a new installment of Resources Radio: “The Money Behind Wind Power, with Jay Bartlett.”
Host Daniel Raimi talks with Jay Bartlett, a senior research associate at RFF. Bartlett discusses the financial markets for wind energy, how the process of hedging works for financing renewables, and changes to state and federal policies that can affect the market for renewable energy.
Notable quotes from the podcast:
- “So the hedges that we're looking at, you could really refer to them as swap contracts. What the developer is doing is they're swapping the actual electricity prices that they will receive for a predetermined fixed price . . . Generally, the actual electricity prices are going to be greater than the fixed price they're getting in return. So the reason they're doing that is basically they're getting more revenue certainty. They're almost sort of guaranteeing themselves a certain amount of revenue.”―Jay Bartlett (5:28)
- “Wind has become sufficiently profitable―sufficiently competitive―that it often does not necessarily need those [renewable portfolio standard] policies to make the deal financeable.”―Jay Bartlett (14:15)
- “The importance of state policy will be renewed over the next several years as the [production tax credit] goes away and these projects are looking to something else to make sure they're financeable.”―Jay Bartlett (19:41)
Resources Radio is a weekly podcast series exploring timely environmental, energy, and natural resources topics, and can be found on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, and SoundCloud.
Resources for the Future (RFF) is an independent, nonprofit research institution in Washington, DC. Its mission is to improve environmental, energy, and natural resource decisions through impartial economic research and policy engagement. RFF is committed to being the most widely trusted source of research insights and policy solutions leading to a healthy environment and a thriving economy.
Unless otherwise stated, the views expressed here are those of the individual authors and may differ from those of other RFF experts, its officers, or its directors. RFF does not take positions on specific legislative proposals.
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