2010 has been a dynamic year of ups and downs for the renewable energies industry, according to Michael Eckhart, founder and president of the American Council On Renewable Energies. ACORE just hosted the 7th Renewable Energy Finance Forum, jointly put on with the European Energy Events in New York City on June 29 and 30.

The purpose of the conference is to bring all renewable energies markets together as one group to be more effective in getting public policy and the financial sector to back the collective industry.

“People who are not knowledgeable about these technologies are uncomfortable trying to make a decision on whether solar energy gets one thing and wind power gets another. It’s like choosing from among your children who gets more or less, you’d rather deal with them as a group and find ways of sharing policy to the extent possible,” Eckhart said.

The struggle renewables face at the moment is not just the financial crunch constraining the industry, but a lack of federal support. Due to the recession, government-mandated financial regulations make it harder for US banks to make 10-to-15-year loans. This makes it hard to get access to available debt to fund projects, Echkart said.


“We really seriously need action by the federal government to extend the cash grant, put the renewable energy standard in place and commit to some of the new financing mechanisms that they’ve been discussing. This is incredibly urgent this summer that the congress do that. Otherwise we’re going to see a pretty big slowdown in the renewable market simply on the basis of financial constraints,” Eckhart said.

But on the plus side, things are looking up this year as government Research and Development money has been big enough to get projects started and cash grants instead of investment tax credits have been feeding the development side of the industry. As well, manufacturing tax credits have made $2.3-billion available.

“Of course the money hasn’t been received yet, but that will come,” Eckhart said.

At this year’s forum, discussions centered around new ways of doing finance and providing a basis for companies to make fewer bad investments.

“Finance is based on confidence. Confidence is based on trust. Trust is based on knowing who you’re dealing with,” he said.

Started in 2001, ACORE’s founding philosophy was to bring the renewable energies to mainstream America instead of getting the mainstream to adapt to using renewables, evident in this year’s program. Eckhart has gathered senior-level keynote speakers who are the most effective people at securing transactions to talk about what is going on in the market, including those companies who don’t normally deal in renewables.

Mike Morris, CEO of American Electric Power, spoke about how his coal-fired utility is using renewable energy – exactly the outcome that Eckhart intended when he built ACORE. 

“It’s not that Mr. Morris is a renewable energy advocate, far from it, but he’s a great example of a conventional utility executive who is building renewable energy into his portfolio because it works for him. There you have a non-advocate actively working on renewables and that’s a very healthy sign,” he said.