Alternative windpower ownership structures: Financing terms and project costs

Most utility-scale renewable energy projects in the United States are developed and financed by private renewable energy companies. Electric output is then sold to investor-owned and public utilities under long-term contracts. Limited partnerships, sale/leaseback arrangements, and project-financing have historically been the dominant forms of finance in the windpower industry, with project-finance taking the lead more recently. Although private ownership using project-finance is still the most popular form of windpower development, alternative approaches to ownership and financing are becoming more prevalent. U.S. public and investor-owned electric utilities (IOUs) have begun to participate directly in windpower projects by owning and financing their own facilities rather than purchasing windpower from independent non-utility generators (NUGs) through power purchase agreements (PPAs). In these utility-ownership arrangements, the wind turbine equipment vendor/developer typically designs and constructs a project under a turnkey contract for the eventual project owner (the utility). The utility will also frequently sign an operations and maintenance (O&M) contract with the project developer/equipment vendor. There appear to be a number of reasons for utility involvement in recent and planned U.S. wind projects. One important claim is that utility ownership and self-finance provides substantial cost savings compared to contracting with private NUGs to supply wind-generated power. In this report, we examine that assertion.