NOTICEThis report was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States government. Neither the United States government nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States government or any agency thereof. The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States government or any agency thereof. Executive SummarySolar energy technologies continue to be deployed at unprecedented levels, aided significantly by the advent of large-scale projects that sell their power directly to electric utilities. Such utilityscale systems can deploy solar technologies far faster than traditional "behind-the-meter" projects designed to offset retail load. These systems achieve significant economies of scale during construction and operation, and in attracting financial capital, which can in turn reduce the delivered cost of power.This is the first in a series of three reports on utility-scale solar installation in the United States. This report serves as: (1) a primer on utility-scale solar technologies and (2) a summary of the current state of the U.S. utility-scale solar market. The second report overviews policies and financing of utility-scale solar systems; the third report assesses the impact of financial structures on the cost of energy from utility-scale systems.Utility-scale solar projects are generally categorized in one of two basic groups: concentrating solar power (CSP) and photovoltaic (PV). CSP systems generally include four commercially available technologies: CSP trough, CSP tower, parabolic dish, and linear Fresnel reflector, although only CSP trough and CSP tower projects are currently being deployed. CSP systems can also be categorized as hybrid systems, which combine a solar-based system and a fossil fuel energy system to produce electricity or steam.PV systems usually include either crystalline silicon (c-Si) or thin-film technologies. Thin film includes an array of advanced materials, but only one-cadmium telluride (CdTe)-has had significant success in utility-scale solar development. Additionally, this report covers concentrating photovoltaic (CPV) systems, 1 which only recently have gained traction in the utility-scale market with several signed contracts.According to a database maintained by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), 2 there are approximately 16,043 megawatts (MW) of utility-scale solar resources under development 3 in the United States as of January 2012 (see Figure ES-1). PV projects make up the overwhelm...

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RNA interference (RNAi) is a biological process in which double-stranded ribonucleic acid (dsRNA) molecules inhibit protein expression. In recent years, the application of dsRNA has been used in the development of agricultural products for pest control. The 2019 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Conference on RNAi Based Pesticides ("the Conference") brought together academic, industry, and government experts in various aspects of RNAi to discuss the current state of knowledge and topics to help in developing considerations for risk assessment. The Conference focused on environment, with some discussion of human health. Along with presentations on the use of dsRNA-based products in agriculture, government regulation, risk assessment, and a background on the Draft OECD Working Paper on "Considerations for the Environmental Risk Assessment of the Application of Sprayed or Externally Applied dsRNA-Based Pesticides" ("OECD Working Paper"), the Conference included panel discussions from presenters at the end of each session and a larger discussion session with Conference participants on the environmental fate of dsRNA, non-target organism (NTO) risk assessment, and human health risk assessment. This paper summarizes input from presenters and Conference participants during these discussions. Key considerations from these discussions have already been incorporated into the OECD Working Paper, that once finalized and published, will facilitate regulators in evaluating externally applied dsRNA-based products for potential environmental risks.

NOTICEThis report was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States government. Neither the United States government nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States government or any agency thereof. The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States government or any agency thereof. • Mike Niver, SolarCity Executive SummaryTo stimulate investment in renewable energy generation projects, the federal government developed a series of support structures that reduce taxes for eligible investors-the investment tax credit, the production tax credit, and accelerated depreciation. The nature of these tax incentives often requires an outside investor and a complex financial arrangement to allocate risk and reward among the parties. These financial arrangements are generally categorized as "advanced financial structures." Among renewable energy technologies, advanced financial structures were first widely deployed by the wind industry and are now being explored by the solar industry to support significant scale up in project development.1 This report describes four of the most prevalent financial structures used by the renewable sector and evaluates the impact of financial structure on energy costs for utility-scale solar projects that use photovoltaic and concentrating solar power technologies.A critical aspect of the analysis is the input assumptions, including the cost to install each technology, the costs and terms of financial capital relevant to the technology and financial structure assessed, and the operating costs of each technology. To determine reasonable inputs, the authors conducted a series of interviews with industry experts, reviewed several sources in the current literature, and relied on the default values from the System Advisor Model that was employed in this analysis, which were, in turn, guided by the industry expertise of its developers.The analysis determined that financial structures that include project-level debt generally yield a lower levelized cost of energy (LCOE) compared to those that rely purely on equity capital, although in practice raising debt at the project level can be difficult, particularly for developers without sizable balance sheets and a strong history of development experience. Other insights from the analysis include:• Debt associated with the loan guarantee program can reduce LCOE by approximately 20%, and possibly more, depending on the quantity of debt the project is allowed to take on.•...

NOTICEThis report was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States government. Neither the United States government nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States government or any agency thereof. The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States government or any agency thereof.

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Executive SummaryThe following report offers a high-level analysis of the immediate potential that securitization and access to the capital markets could offer the U.S. solar photovoltaics (PV) industry. It is not a "vision" study, and accordingly does not provide a roadmap, nor make any projections. All data used to conduct the analyses in this report are from 2012, and all assessments are therefore based on the installed base of securitizable solar assets as of the close of that year.This report comes as the PV industry is approaching an inflection point of sorts, where the incentives that have driven the recent surge in deployment are either already expired or are set to decline in the near term. Prices for PV technologies and systems continue to decline; however, solar PV remains, in many jurisdictions, a higher-cost source of electricity than more traditional forms of generation on a strictly levelized-cost-of-energy-basis. Faced with diminishing policy support, the PV industry is seeking additional sources of capital (and at advantageous cost) to fund its operations over the mid-to long-term.As is common of many maturing industries, PV is looking to the capital markets-the global forum where entities buy, sell, and trade debt and equity securities-as a venue to obtain this additional capital. The PV industry may access the capital markets by two general means:1. Securitization: The process of transforming illiquid assets (such as the cash flows from a solar lease or power purchase agreement) into standardized, tradable instruments (i.e., securities). Security issuers sell the rights to the underlying assets (via the securities), and the proceeds are used to finance business operations. Issuers pay an interest rate to each investor, the percentage of which is typically dictated by the rating of the securities.2. Bonding: The process of securitizing debt and then issuing it into the capital markets via bonds. By purchasing bonds (and the rights to the cash flows on the underlying debt), investors are in essence lending money to the issuer. The investors are compensated by an interest rate applied to the amount of their purchase payable by the issuer. Bond finance has been used in the marketplace to finance solar projects.Several challenges complicate the PV industry's path to securitization. Harmonizing the relationship of the tax equity tranche of the capital stack and the debt sourced from a securitization transaction is a challenge which will require some financial engineering. Standardization is another barrier: the solar industry currently abounds in a diverse set of asset contracts, installation and operations and maintenance (O&M) practices, and other features of business that make the task of pooling assets (the precursor to securitization) difficult. However, many securitization markets, including mortgages, required innovation and time to achieve viability, and these hurdles may be more symptomatic of growing pains than of permanent barriers.The following analysis aims to demonstrate, hypotheticall...

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