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o c t o b e r / n o v e m b e r 2 0 1 5 www.resourceworld.com 57 States see economic benefits from cutting carbon emissions The Analysis Group report, "The Economic Impacts of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative on Nine Northeast and Mid- Atlantic States" shows that states participating in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) to regulate carbon emissions from power plants through market-based mechanisms saw economic benefits. The report also examined state strategies to invest that revenue, including funding energy efficiency pro- grams, building community-based renewable power projects, helping low-income customers pay their electricity bills, put- ting greenhouse-gas reduction measures in place, educating consumers, and offering training for clean-energy jobs. Under RGGI, six New England states plus New York, Delaware, and Maryland established a regional cap for car- bon emissions. States then created plans to cut carbon and offer a declining number of carbon emission allowances for sale through regional auctions. Power plant owners bought those allowances at auction, which gave them the right to emit specific amounts of carbon dioxide or to find ways to clean up carbon emissions. Auction proceeds went back to the states, which reinvested billions of dollars into their economies. Each state decided how to spend that money. The report found that implementing RGGI from 2012 to 2014 added $1.3 billion in economic value to the RGGI region, cre- ating more than 14,000 new jobs, and cutting electricity and heating bills, saving consumers $460 million. Each state saw economic benefits from cutting annual carbon emissions by about a third from 2008 (140 million metric tons) to 2014 (90 million metric tons). According to co-author Sue Tierney, "The past three years of RGGI's operations helps families, businesses and institutions save $460 million on energy bills." n "quarterly dividends for yieldcos are expected to increase 20% within the first 18 months, with the yield at the IPO stage being approximately 5.5% per quarter with dividends expected to be in the ballpark of 70%-0% of cash available for distribution." Dr. Shawn Qu, Chairman and CEO of Canadian Solar [CSIQ-NASDAQ], has stated that a yieldco will "maximize value creation for our shareholders over the long- term." Other executives are in agreement; SunEdison's CFO, Brian Weubbles, declared that a yieldco could generate 2.5 times the revenue it would from selling completed projects to an unrelated corporation. According to Solar pioneer, Peter F. Varadi, the yieldco is a perfect solar breeder. "A yieldco's shares, when sold, can be used as a source of low cost money for producing more PV systems. The beauty for the manufacturer is, that by establishing a yieldco, based on the PV manufacturer's need of cash, it can sell all the shares or as many shares for as much money as the PV manufacturer needs. In addition, Varadi states, "Companies do not have to find single investors like Warren Buffett's company which can afford to invest lots of money to buy a large utility size PV system. People can buy the yieldco shares in any quantity and it has been shown that it was not a problem for yieldcos to generate many hundreds of millions of dollars of investment capital." Most analysts agree that the solar industries' use of the yieldco system will radically increase the growth of the indus- try and accelerate expansion of companies, making investment opportunities more attractive for institutional and retail inves- tors alike. n