Michael Mendelsohn's Articles

Recapture Rapture: Can Revised Tax Credit Policies Attract More Capital to Solar?

For developers trying to monetize the federal tax benefits for a given project, finding a tax equity partner can be a lonely process. Tax equity investors consist of a limited pool of suitors—investment bankers and a few other firms — who can tolerate...

Who Needs Third-Party Finance? Loan Programs Offer Low-Cost Direct Ownership Opportunities

Direct ownership of solar systems offers an array of benefits generally not available to third-party finance. And new loan programs are making it easier to achieve that goal.

Does RPS Still Run the Renewable Energy Engines?

Renewable energy deployment has increased in recent years thanks to two primary turbo chargers: federal tax policies that incentivize investment and state renewable portfolio standards (RPS) that require utilities to procure increasing amounts of renewable...

How Do We Lower Solar Installation Costs: Standardize and Harmonize

Soft costs can be pretty tough. The cost of solar installations can be generally separated into "hard" costs — representing primary components such as modules, racking, inverters — and soft costs including legal, permitting, and financing. While the former...

How Much Do U.S. Tax Benefits Cost per kWh of Solar Production?

Many frequently wonder: what is the cost to the taxpayer/ratepayer of the various benefits (federal, state, utility) bestowed on renewable energy projects, and is there a more cost-effective way to support these fledgling technologies? Also, how do U.S....

Where Did All the Solar Go? Calculating Total U.S. Solar Energy Production

Good data can be hard to come by. Let's take solar production data. According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), solar electricity production facilities — including photovoltaic (PV) and concentrating solar power (CSP) — produced a total...

Michael Mendelsohn

Michael Mendelsohn

Michael Mendelsohn is a Senior Analyst with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s project finance team and expert in PV and CSP financing. His expertise spans 20 years and encompasses various aspects of renewable energy technologies,...

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