Saturday, January 04, 2014

Financing is key to Sustainable Green CommunityDevelopment

As the new year 2014 starts, we must review what occurred in 2013 and plan strategies that can avoid the hurdles to faster implementation of Green energy programs in New York and other States in America. While we wait for a National investment plan, each State can do what is appropriate for them.

New York has many innovative funding  initiatives but the rate of implementation is still slow because of lack of affordable capital funding to start the projects. Many of these initiatives are justified based on future savings to payback the investment made on the project and ability to achieve energy independence. Unfortunately the traditional financing institutions are reluctant to take risks on new green technologies and private investments are seeking much higher interest rate which raises the costs to the community. So what can be done to help and make better progress?

The publicly funded  Green Bonds offer a great ray of hope to encourage the implementation of Green energy technologies. Funds can be loaned with 5-10 year term at low interest rate and the risk covered by the borrower who has the expertise in new technologies and willing to use these funds to build the systems and payback the loans from the revenues generated by the savings or generation of green energy.

Fortunately, New York has initiated a $ 1 Billion Green Bank to help meet this funding need for Green projects. This initiative results from the Green Vision promoted by our Governor.
We hope it succeeds in making New York lead this transformation to green and clean technology.
Happy New Year!

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