Finance Archives - Green Businesses

Financing Kicks Off for New York’s $1B Green Bank

Katherine Tweed for Greentechmedia Governor Andrew Cuomo just announced $165 million financing for New York State’s $1 billion Green Bank. Once the initial funds are approved by the public service commission, the Green Bank will look for private sector financing to join the bank to fund clean energy projects. The Bank is expected to be open for business in early 2014. Governor Cuomo said the money will be used “to build a more cost-effective, resilient and clean energy system in New York,” although the specifics of which projects will be able to take advantage of the Bank have yet to be determined. The money will go to technologies that are ready to be deployed, and could include everything from more efficient chillers and voltage control devices to solar PV and combined heat and power systems. “As a public-private partnership, the Green Bank will implement a pioneering approach that strategically and efficiently uses limited state resources to drive investment into…

When Your Rooftop Solar Panels Make More $ than S&P 500

by Chris Meehan for SolarReviews Thirteen might not be a lucky number, but it seems like a better number when you consider that in 13 states—over a quarter of all states, including the most populous ones like California and New York—solar offers a better return on investment than investing in the S&P 500. That’s just another way to look at why solar is a better investment today than many other investments people can make. That’s according to the latest Geostellar Quarterly Index, which looked at the profitability of investing in rooftop solar across the U.S. The report found that the internal return on investment over the anticipated 25-year lifespan of solar panels was highest in Hawaii (24 percent) and that the majority of top states for internal returns on investing in solar were primarily on the East coast. Among the top 10 states only California (eighth with a 12 percent return), Colorado (fifth with a 15 percent return), New Mexico (seventh with a 13 percent r…

Yesterday’s Thomas Edison and J.P. Morgan To Solar Power Today

This article was first published on Medium. By Billy Parish, Co-founder of Mosaic The first person whose home blazed with electric light was J.P. Morgan. The financier also owned the first business lit with incandescent bulbs. In the latter case, Thomas Edison himself was on hand to flip the switch. Edison needed funders like Morgan, and later the Vanderbilt Family, because he was launching an endeavor that required huge capital expenditures. He was establishing the groundwork for the electrification of a planet, and to accomplish his goals he needed big finance. Fast forward to the present: J.P. Morgan Chase is now the world’s second largest financial company, General Electric is the world’s third largest company of any kind, and the U.S. electric grid is the largest machine ever built. Our energy system and our financial system have always run in tandem. The two grew up together and they have played off of each other to become history’s largest and, arguably, mos…