Latest Updates
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Geothermal liftoff
This post is republished from the April 2024 installment of our Capacity Factor newsletter. Subscribe here. The Department of Energy (DOE) released another commercial liftoff report, this time focused on enhanced geothermal energy. While all of their reports are excellent, this one features a wonderful discussion of how the changing grid shapes the price of geothermal…
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Overreading into underwriting
If you’ve ever secured a mortgage, signed up for an insurance plan, or—anyone could be reading this—taken your company public on the New York Stock Exchange, then you’ve needed something called underwriting. Taking on debt to finance a home is risky, to say nothing of raising funding for a company. You know this, and so…
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Comments on Domestic Content Rules
The Center for Public Enterprise (CPE) submitted comments on domestic content rules as they relate to the elective pay provisions under § 6417 of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). You can read those comments in full here.
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Overreading into Underwriting, Part 3
This is the final post of our three-part series on underwriting. In the two previous posts, I covered how underwriting works and how it interacts with the financial system, particularly in key tax equity and municipal bond markets. This last post picks up where the last left off: given the disappointing implications our fragile underwriting…
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Effective load carrying capacity
This post is republished from the March installment of our Capacity Factor newsletter. Subscribe here. Mid-Atlantic grid operator PJM recently published 2025-26 estimates of “effective load carrying capability” (ELCC) that show gas plants carrying more load (a measure of electricity demand), on average, than any of the four battery storage options during peak energy demand events. This…
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Overreading into Underwriting, Part 2
This is the second of three posts in our underwriting series. The previous post—read here—explains how project finance underwriting at commercial banks works. This post dives into how underwriting interacts with the broader financial system to set the conditions for investment into crucial decarbonization priorities, with a focus on tax equity and municipal bond underwriting.…
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Overreading into Underwriting, Part 1
If you’ve ever secured a mortgage, signed up for an insurance plan, or—anyone could be reading this—taken your company public on the New York Stock Exchange, then you’ve needed something called underwriting. Taking on debt to finance a home is risky, to say nothing of raising funding for a company. You know this, and so…
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IRS Direct Pay Portal Walkthrough
In late December, the Treasury and IRS opened up a registration portal for firms and other entities to access the elective payment provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). This portal allows elective pay-eligible entities to pre-register before they file the tax returns which will allow them to claim credits. It does not guarantee that…
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SMRs and the public sector
Emerging technologies in the energy-generating resource space are inherently risky. Naturally, when we think about boundary-pushing advances in the energy industry, we should expect private investors to be reluctant to take on the burden of ushering these new technologies in. The case for small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) is instructive for why the public sector…
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Technical Assistance Partnership and New Staff
We’re excited to announce that Center for Public Enterprise will be partnering with Economic Security Project to provide technical assistance on the use of public financing tools for clean energy investments.