Affordable Renewal Energy

Author Archives for Tom Konrad PhD

How the Economic Crisis Will Help Clean Tech


Tom is an investment blogger who brings readers ideas for investments in clean energy at AltEnergyStocks.com.

The Solar Investment Tax Credit has been extended, and the market for mortgage debt "rescued," but neither renewable energy nor the rest of the economy are out of the woods.  We’ll probably be feeling the effects of the financial imbalances which have built up in our economy for years to come.

While the extension of the tax credit will help renewable energy technologies raise funding, the headwinds from the continued fallout of the structured finance and real estate bubble will be blowing in the other direction.  This will be a problem both for developers of new technologies, and project developers.  On the other hand, changes in the ITC (allowing it to offset the AMT, and removal of the public utility exemption) allow new investors, such as property and casualty insurers, into tax equity investing.  These investors are likely to be more cautious, but they are likely to be there.

The good news is that we already have the technology we need to decarbonize the economy.  The key now is adapting our regulatory structure and infrastructure to accept the technologies we already have.  Unarguably, project finance has become more difficult with the drying up of many pools of capital, but that is not the end of the story.  

Too Much Money