440 - Energy Project Development & Finance
Core/Elective: Elective
Credits: 1.0
Quarter Taught: Winter
Synopsis:
This course takes students through the design, permitting, financing, and implementation process of large-scale energy infrastructure developments including solar, wind, electricity storage, natural gas and hydrogen facilities.
Students will gain an understanding of the financial, legal, policy and operations factors affecting the projected lifetime value of various electric energy systems. Through lectures, guest speakers, financial modeling and case studies, students will learn how to quantify business opportunities tied to new energy infrastructure, understand the motivations and interaction of various stakeholders, and optimize the selection of a site, entity structure, finance partners, and proposed offtake customers. There will be a focus on renewable energy, particularly solar, wind, storage and other related technologies.
Course Objectives:
At the end of this course, a student should:
- Detail the factors which must be considered when assessing the suitability of a new energy infrastructure project;
- Understand the distribution of risk interest and capacity among project stakeholders, including developers, project finance lender, and infrastructure equity investment firms;
- Understand and evaluate the capital stack of a renewables project including tax equity, debt and sponsor equity
- Stipulate a detailed financial project IRR given various project entity structure, financing and power offtake agreements