Ep357: Managing Technology Risk in Energy Storage Projects

Summary

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Currents Podcast: Ep357 – "Managing Technology Risk in Energy Storage Projects"

Date: July 23, 2026
Host: Jim Berger (Norton Rose Fulbright)
Guests: Jan Napiorkowski & Jamie Daggett (Ariel Green)

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Episode Overview

This episode of Currents dives into how technology risk is managed in energy storage projects, with a particular focus on the evolution and current role of Technology Performance Insurance (TPI). Jan Napiorkowski and Jamie Daggett from Ariel Green return to discuss market shifts since their previous 2024 appearance, the impact of policy and technology changes, the increasing complexity and standardization of TPI products, and how TPI is crucial for both bankability and long-term risk mitigation in a rapidly scaling renewables sector.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Evolution of Technology Performance Insurance (TPI)

• Expansion of Technologies:
  Ariel Green’s underwriting now covers a broader range of technologies beyond earlier focus areas like solar LFP batteries, gasification, and solid oxide fuel cells. Technologies recently added include non-LFP batteries, pyrolysis, anaerobic digestion, electrolyzers, and broader power-to-X applications. (Jan, 00:52–2:40)
• Product Structure Changes:
  Greater complexity in warranty structures requires deal-specific negotiations, leading to "more bespoke, more negotiated deal by deal" insurance solutions (Jan, 01:35).
• Market Maturity:
  While solar TPI is mature, other sectors—especially batteries—see increasing demand due to changes in warranty provider dynamics and supplier risk. (02:56–03:41)

2. The US Market Post-2024

• Market Shifts:
  The US energy market shifted dramatically after 2024, with Inflation Reduction Act hype followed by regulatory and geopolitical uncertainties. Despite volatility from changes in administration and tariffs, the market has adapted and matured, with increased investor sophistication and demand for long-term risk management. (Jamie, 03:48–05:15)

  “Energy storage and renewables are now the cheapest and fastest way to add power in the US... The market has been really adapting rather than slowing down.” — Jamie, [03:48]

• Impact on TPI Demand:
  Policy and economic uncertainty are "a bullish signal" for long-term insurance providers like Ariel Green. TPI policies often extend for 10–25 years, far outlasting administration cycles. (Jamie, 05:27–06:15)

3. Drivers of TPI: Scale, Warranty Complexity, Supplier Risk

• Project Scale:
  Typical insured project sizes surged from $50–200 million in 2024 to $300 million up to $1.5 billion today, reflecting sector growth and larger capital needs. (Jan, 06:28–08:53)
• Warranty and Supplier Risk:
  Extended, expensive warranties and supplier bankruptcies underscore the value of insurance to replace "junk warranties" and elevate project ratings.

  “Consolidation is happening and the storage sector and either replacing junk warranties with investment grade insurance policies or... bring the entire project rating from speculative to investment grade…” — Jan, [08:00]

4. Energy Storage Market Pressures

• Integration as Infrastructure:
  Storage is no longer a niche technology; it is becoming core to grid stability, AI-driven load swings, microgrids, and large-scale infrastructure. Project scale is rising rapidly, driving up the stakes for warranty and counterparty risk. (Jamie, 09:10–10:39)
• Supplier Bankruptcies:
  Recent high-profile bankruptcies (e.g., Northvolt and Powen) highlight the need for robust TPI structures.

5. Retroactive and Synthetic Warranties

• Ariel Green provides coverage for operational projects, sometimes more easily due to available performance data. In cases of supplier bankruptcy, e.g., Powen, they offer “synthetic warranty” solutions as an insurance backstop. (Jamie, 11:04–12:11)

6. Interaction with Lenders & Financing Dynamics

• TPI is often used to backstop lender requirements around warranties. While TPI hasn’t been used to bring a project out of bankruptcy after default, it is regularly utilized to keep project financing terms viable when warranty providers exit the market. (Jamie, 12:11–13:34)

7. Bankability: Core Role of TPI

• Bankability Defined:
  TPI's main role remains making projects "bankable" by transferring tech risk and enabling new types of debt at better terms.

  “[TPI] transforms technology risk into financeable cash flows.” — Jan, [06:28]

• Explains that beyond risk transfer, TPI must deliver economic value—not just mitigate risk, but enable capital access and better terms (increased gearing, longer amortization, lower rates). (Jan, 13:45–15:32)

8. Detailed Case Study: Frontier Power Platform Transaction

• Partnership:
  Ariel Green provides $1.5 billion in long-term TPI to support the deployment of 2+GWh of storage for Frontier Power US—a Cerberus/Eos platform.
• Structure:
  TPI guarantees revenue to meet debt service across portfolios, which unlocks $100 million+ in scalable capital investment and access to larger, longer-term debt. (Jamie, 15:58–19:28)

  “Our role… is to provide the confidence to lenders that these critical risks are covered… more specifically… that technology performance risk is protected… and will protect the debt service…” — Jamie, [16:39]

9. Economic Benefits of TPI for Investors

• Two Project Types:
  • Projects that are unfinanceable without TPI (novel techs, waste-to-energy, P2X, pilots)
  • Projects that benefit from TPI by getting lower debt costs, higher gearing, or longer tenors.
• Impact Demonstrated:
  Real-world examples show credit ratings upgraded when TPI is in place, with TPI unlocking 50–200bps savings or enabling access to more/better debt. (Jan, 19:45–21:38)

10. Lessons from Losses and Market Growth

• Market scale-up has come with learnings and losses; TPI has paid multiple claims for equipment failures, illustrating its value and necessity as the sector continues to innovate.
• Insurance enables technological innovation by allowing stakeholders to "ride through" business interruption and loss events as the ecosystem matures. (Jamie, 21:54–23:30)

  “We’ve seen equipment failures and paid multiple claims, which is exactly what technology performance insurance is meant to do.” — Jamie, [21:54]

11. Scaling TPI: The Need for Standardization

• Standardized warranties on supplier side (as in solar) drive commoditization of insurance.
• On buyer/lender side, consensus on risk transfer cost/benefit is vital; collaborative, transparent processes breed scale and comfort. (Jan, 23:38–26:40)

  “Creating mutual consensus around the cost benefit of a particular risk transfer leads to scale.” — Jan, [25:57]

12. Practical Takeaways for Stakeholders

• Sponsors and lenders must plan for long-term risk: focus shifts from eliminating risk to managing it.
• Growth requires flexibility to adapt to inevitable swings—tariffs, bankruptcies, tech shifts. (Jamie, 26:52–27:53)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Evolving Structures:
  “The complexity of the warranties itself has increased quite significantly. So they tend to be more bespoke, more negotiated deal by deal.” — Jan, [01:35]

• On Uncertainty as Opportunity:
  “Our policies are long term… the volatility that happens, even... from administration to administration really is just a blip…” — Jamie, [05:27]

• On the Role of TPI:
  “[TPI] transforms technology risk into financeable cash flows.” — Jan, [06:28]

• On Market Scaling & Losses:
  “We’ve seen equipment failures and paid multiple claims... We’re not picking the winners. We just try to pick technology that we think has good potential and then we expect losses to happen along the way. And that is exactly what’s been happening.” — Jamie, [21:54]

• On Standardization & Growth:
  “Creating mutual consensus around the cost benefit of a particular risk transfer leads to scale.” — Jan, [25:57]

• On Planning for the Long Term:
  “No one can perfectly predict tariffs and bankruptcies, international and supply chain issues… So the conversation today is less about eliminating risk, it’s more about managing it intelligently.” — Jamie, [27:01]

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Important Segment Timestamps

• [00:52] — Evolution and expansion of TPI technologies
• [03:48] — US market changes post-IRA, investor adaptation
• [06:15] — Project scale, warranty economics, supplier risk
• [09:10] — Energy storage as core infrastructure
• [11:04] — Insuring operational projects & post-supplier-bankruptcy policies
• [15:58] — Frontier Power Platform case study
• [19:45] — TPI economic benefits and investor perspective
• [21:54] — Market scaling, claims, and innovation risk
• [23:38] — Standardization as key to scaling TPI
• [26:52] — Takeaways for sponsors and lenders
• [28:09] — Big-picture future of TPI in energy transition

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Conclusion & Takeaways

The role of TPI is more critical than ever as energy storage matures into fundamental infrastructure. The sector’s scale, complexity, and risk profile are evolving rapidly, and robust risk transfer solutions like TPI are essential for bankability and growth. As the space standardizes and all stakeholders become more sophisticated, TPI will continue to be a cornerstone for unlocking capital, facilitating innovation, and driving forward the energy transition.

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Transcript

[A]

Foreign

[B]

welcome to Currents, a Norton Rose Fulbright podcast. I am Jim Berger. Today we welcome Jan Napiorkowski and Jamie Daggett from Ariel Green. Ariel Green offers technology performance insurance which is designed to ensure clean energy projects secure financing at competitive rates. Jan and Jamie, thank you for joining us again. You were on a couple years ago.

[C]

Glad to be here. Thank you. Appreciate it, Jim.

[A]

Glad to be here. Bye Jim.

[B]

So you were on I think in 2024 and Jan, when you spoke with Todd in 2024, Technology Performance Insurance, or TPI, was a mature product in a few commercialized sectors, but it was still expanding into emerging technologies. So can you talk a little bit about what has changed since then?

[A]

Yeah, the evolution of our product has been predominantly on two ends. First, the technologies that we underwrite, but also the product structure that needs to evolve in order to address new market needs. When it comes to technologies, we have been mostly active back then when we spoke in ensuring solar LFP bass, some forms of gasification and solid oxide fuel cells. The new tech sectors now include mostly non LFP bass and non solid oxide fuel cells, but also a variety of ways to energy gasifications, scale up of gasification, but also pyrolysis, anaerobic digestion and I think more recently in the last 18 months. Electrolyzers are broadly powered to X technology. So really lots of work has been done to equip aerial green for what we see as next stage commercial deployments. But I think the really interesting development was on the product structure because the complexity of the warranties itself has increased quite significantly. So they tend to be more bespoke, more negotiated deal by deal. We think from the discussions that they create an additional level of uncertainty around its technical validity versus just a commercial push in some cases. So even a relatively commercialized technology like LFP Bass comes with narrow and relatively expensive extended warranty that don't give just the financiers the security required to stretch tenors of loans. So navigating across the risk appetite and the technology itself, but also structuring TPI to provide meaningful risk transfer to the stakeholders is increasingly important for us.

[B]

That's really interesting in the product structure I'm interested in understanding. Have the structures change just for the new technologies you're insuring or is it also for the technologies you were insuring a few years ago, like solar?

[A]

I mean, we have been insuring LFP bass a couple of years ago as well. And the structures have changed here because the warranties have significantly changed. I mean, at the beginning the warranties were most of the, let's call it Tier 1 suppliers were providing long term warranties. Those warranties are not for free anymore. It has been a, a seller's market for years. That has created a very different dynamic in how warranties are provided and who has to pay for the warranties. On solar, the product has been pretty mature. I would say that's the most mature product. You know, we've been offering this since 2009, so there hasn't been so much change there yet. But there is an increasing buying demand given, you know, new manufacturing from, from India for example.

[B]

Okay, interesting. And Jamie, can you talk a little bit how this has translated into the US market specifically?

[C]

Sure. Energy storage and renewables are now the cheapest and fastest way to add power in the US So the long term direction is clear. But things have significantly changed since 2024. The market's gone through some major swings. 2024 was all about riding the wave of the Inflation Reduction Act. There were huge investment pouring into the clean energy market. Then new administration took office early 25. There was a sharp shift and uncertainty around tariffs and FIAC rules and really generally broader geopolitical uncertainty impacted supply chains and financing markets. But what's really interesting, in the last, say six to 12 months or so we've seen, the market has been really adapting rather than slowing down. And investors are becoming more sophisticated about these long term technology and infrastructure risks where typical owners aren't just looking at getting a project in and flipping an asset, but they're really trying to figure out how to plan for long term risk. So this is where TPI has played an evolving role. It's becoming more meaningful because they're looking project developers, owners, lenders are looking to weather this uncertainty and plan for the long term risk mitigation asset ownership. So that's really been the shift in the last couple years that we've seen.

[B]

Okay, So I imagine uncertainty, especially maybe around policy and things like that, are probably a bullish signal for your business. Is that fair to say?

[C]

I think it is fair to say. Our policies are long term. So we're covering certain project tenors of 10, 15 and for solar projects up to 25 years. So you know, the volatility that happens, even you know, from administration to administration really is just a blip in the term of our policies. And so we're trying to translate that long term view to long term confidence. And you know, you know, so we see ups and downs and you know, bankruptcies as being due course in what we typically cover. And you know, we want to build insurance structures and confidence in the market so that they can weather those storms as well, because that's the only way we'll grow together.

[B]

Jan, I want to go back to you for a second. In 2024, when you were last on the podcast, you had said that demand was driven by project scale, long term warranties and supplier risk. Has that played out the way you thought it would?

[A]

We can say yes, and we should say it's still at play. I mean, these are the main drivers. TPI transforms. I think probably the best definition or the quickest definition is we would like to see it, is to say that TPI transforms technology risk into financeable cash flows. And there is two components to it. One is the technology performance risk piece itself. You know, how likely is the equipment asset to perform at modeled or at guaranteed levels for the lifetime of the project or the tenor of the loan. And the second piece is how creditworthy is the warranty sitting behind it, which is the only recovery mechanism really in those projects. So the above two factors are still, you know, this hasn't changed. What has added to this, as I mentioned earlier, is the complexity of the warranties. That's one, the additional cost of the warranties that adds to OPEX significantly for, especially for battery storage. And number three, and this is, I think what you mentioned, your question is project scale. And I think this is where the difference, where the main difference is as we definitely see a larger scale of projects or portfolios that we are being approached with and helping to unlock capital or new types of capital for large scale deployments became one of our key different differentiators. So we, you know, we think that market is ripe now. In 24, I think the average project was, you know, project size was let's say 50 to 200 million right across different technologies. Now it's over 300 million up to 1.5 billion. The warranties are more complex, but also longer. And the, and the supplier risk, well, it's there as it has been before. You know, consolidation is happening and the storage sector and either replacing junk warranties with investment grade insurance policies or trying to bring the entire project rating from speculative to investment grade is something that we have now mostly in our focus. And this is where the structures play such a big role. And we will discuss and have showcases to explain how this was done.

[B]

Yeah, I'm going to get to that in a couple minutes. So you mentioned the size of the projects getting bigger and I've definitely seen that, especially with storage projects. So Jamie, I want you to talk a little bit about the pressures you're seeing specifically in energy storage today.

[C]

Yeah, there's definitely pressure in the energy storage market because there's this shift in mentality. Energy storage is no longer viewed as a add on niche type technology, it's becoming infrastructure. Much like main power transformers or electrical infrastructure, utilities are integrating storage to stabilize for renewable generation, improve transmission, improve distribution. Data centers need storage to support the AI driven power demand and load swings that AI requires. Microgrids need storage where the grid itself can't keep up. So this shift has been pushing project sizes up just like you mentioned, Jim, and they're in the megawatt hour. Hundreds of megawatt hour gigawatt hour projects are becoming very standard. And at the same time, like Jan had mentioned, suppliers are still offering 15 or 20 year warranties on technologies that haven't existed commercially for that long. So this push and pressure of going longer, going bigger and then still seeing high profile bankruptcies in the storage market like Northvolt and Powen, this just reinforces the importance of the counterparty risk and long term warranty risk mitigation. And this is where we're really starting to play a larger role because of all these pressures that are happening on the infrastructure growth side.

[B]

Yeah, it's interesting now I think we're getting to the point where some of the first storage projects are probably kind of reaching, you know, certainly needing to be augmented, maybe reaching the end of their warranty. Do you guys ever insure projects after, I know, at some point after they've already been operating two or three years, or do you only put the insurance in place? You know, right at cod we do

[C]

cover operational projects and in some cases it's easier to ensure operational projects because we have performance data and you know, if performance looks reasonable, then we're happy to cover it. And if, you know, if they're severely underperforming, we just won't cover that. But yes, and even in some cases we've placed policies this year where we had already underwritten a certain technology. That was Pawan Equipment. Pawan went bankrupt last year and now it left many, many project owners fully exposed. Yes, they got a new service provider in to service the batteries, but they had no warranty, no performance guarantees. And so on those projects we were able to provide somewhat of a synthetic warranty. It's an insurance backstop. We also do a similar thing for operational projects in fuel cells and battery storage that have two, three years and are looking to refinance. And so we can provide Insurance and comfort there because we see how they've performed in the past and we feel comfortable looking forward on that as well.

[B]

That's really interesting. It makes me think, you know, a lot of financings, a bankruptcy of a counterparty, like a warranty provider, would put a project into default. I don't know if you guys have a lot of interaction with financing parties, but have you found, or to the extent you do have interaction, have you found that lenders would be willing to essentially take a project out of bankruptcy if a sponsor bought an insurance policy to replace a bankrupt warranty provider?

[C]

So, and Jan, correct me if I'm wrong on this, I don't think we've ever been approached by a, you know, a project that has gone bankrupt and wants to get out of bankruptcy by using insurance. But we absolutely have been involved where, you know, a project had a contingency that all supplier warranties were in place or there was some insurance to backstop to continue getting financed. And so that, you know, our insurance product was used then to continue that, you know, the financing terms that were originally agreed upon. So I guess it's, you know, a precursor to going into full bankruptcy was, you know, they need coverage if they want to continue operating as expected. And, you know, the technology performance insurance was then used to continue operations.

[B]

Jan, when you guys were on the podcast a couple years ago, you had positioned TPI as the main idea was to make projects bankable. Has it evolved beyond that?

[A]

I don't think we need to evolve beyond that. If we can make projects bankable, that's obviously the ultimate goal. Obviously the question is what makes projects bankable? Because that's a highly overused term. So not only what makes products bankable, but also to who. So understanding risk appetite of various capital providers and stakeholders becomes really key. And this goes back to proper structuring of those policies. And then what is most importantly in a competing or more competitive financing environment is bankable at what cost? So we need to understand the economics of various stakeholders in order to create wins. Right? So we definitely need to create a win win where TPI is unlocking capital and instead of just would be nice to have, but it kills economics. So there is the demand from our customers that is coming purely from risk transfer. They understand, and this is what Jamie mentioned before. Some products are becoming infrastructure assets or they are owned by ipps that build, own and operate for years. The risk transfer is a major part of the buying motivation. But if it's individual projects or portfolios, then the initial motivation is mostly to get access to new types of debt or more debt. And then the economics have to work. But then these people often forget that actually they're also buying a risk transfer. So if things go south, they're still covered. Not only they're able to unlock cheaper capital, but they still have a risk transfer behind them. Right.

[B]

Okay, so on your website you have several news releases, but one in particular was about a recent transaction that you supported and it was very interesting. I think it was very large. Can you walk us through this transaction? I think it was for Frontier Power Platform with AOS and Cerberus. Kind of walk us through the transaction and how TPI really enabled the transaction.

[C]

Sure. So Frontier Power usa, it's an independent development investment company led by EOS and Cerberus who was formed to accelerate the utility scale long duration energy storage deployments coming from Eos and Ariel Green is providing technology performance insurance to protect against revenue shortfall and maintain the target debt service coverage ratios across multiple projects within the Frontier Power plant platform. So this is a really exciting transaction because each party involved is solving a different piece of the puzzle. EEOS is deploying 2 gigawatt hour plus of US manufactured long duration energy storage tech. Cerberus has committed $100 million of its own capital to build scalable infrastructure investment platform, the Frontier Power platform. And we at Ariel green have committed 1.5 billion of long term insurance across these multiple projects which will be included in the platform to help bridge the gap between the technology risk and long term project financing. So our role alongside Marsh Insurance Brokers is to provide the confidence to the lenders that these critical risks are covered across the projects and more specifically for us that this technology performance risk is, is protected and it will protect the debt service across the projects and portfolio in case there's any shortfall in performance. So the ultimate goal is TPIs to protect the debt service, but it really allows access to larger capital investment and debt investment for longer term, up to 15 year coverage of this portfolio to allow for these cost effective financing structures to work.

[B]

That's really interesting. So you place the policy for I think you said 2 gigawatt hours and then is it each time a project is actually put in service, kind of a portion of that attaches to that specific project. I'm just trying to think if a lender came to me and said hey, we want to finance this, there's this insurance. Trying to think about how to think about it from a lender perspective when they're looking at a specific project.

[C]

Great question. The Platform is going out and acquiring portfolios of projects. And there's been two subsequent releases since then. One with developers by Mergin, others with developers Stella, and there's groups of projects that are all using the EOS technology. And all these groups of projects are happening in different markets, some in ercot, some out in Kaiso, spread around the US and so each have slightly different offtake structures. But the policy will link the offtake and revenue that links up with the performance of the batteries so that if the batteries shortfall on their performance and then the subsequent revenue falls below the threshold of the ability to pay out the debt service, the insurance triggers, the insurance kicks in and protects against that. So the structures in place, we've already defined terms and as they roll in more projects into the portfolio, we apply the same structure to new projects, but customize it based on which market and revenue structure is being applied to those set of projects.

[B]

Okay. And Jan, I want to take a little step back and look at it from a broader market perspective. If we put numbers around it, can you talk a little bit about what the economic benefits are and more broadly, how should investors think about the value of the tpi?

[A]

Yeah, so I think we can categorize two types of projects or customers that we ensure. One is the projects that mostly will not get funded without tpi. And these are usually those, let's call it rather novel non commercialized technologies, sometimes first of a kind with some smaller scale pilot projects, usually in the space of waste to energy and P2X mostly. And then the projects that are funded that could be funded without tpi, but the return on equities is just not great or there is limited access to capital. There is no capital at scale available, for example. So this is where TPI either boosts return on equity by either lowering rates or increasing gearing or stretching the tenor, unlocking more debt. So we have two examples over the last two years where projects got rated with TPI by one of the major four rating agencies. One was a refinancing of a fuel cell project that got kicked up from top investment grade bbb. And the other one was an anaerobic digestion project that got kicked from sub investment grade. So triple B plus that was capped at the offtake rating. So you know, depending on the case, we think that from the experience we can say that TPI unlocks between 50 to 200 basis points or simply gets access to more debt if you need to access more debt. Right. So it's not always just reducing cost of capital. There's also being able to access more debt or debt for longer, where the benefit is a better amortization profile of debt and improved cash flows.

[B]

Jamie, last time and a couple years ago you mentioned the market would scale quickly and potentially see losses. I think both of you have already talked about how much new scale there is. Can you talk a little bit about what kind of losses we've seen in the last couple years?

[C]

Yeah. So the market has evolved pretty much exactly as we had expected. There's rapid growth, lots of deployment of new technologies. New technology types seem to be announced and coming out from many different suppliers on almost a monthly basis and a lot of learning along the way. And we've seen equipment failures and paid multiple claims, which is exactly what technology performance insurance is meant to do. We've also seen some major industry events like battery fires at Moss Landing, things like that have actually accelerated the improvements in safety standards, testing protocols, system design. We also have seen a lot of growing interest in non lithium technologies in the energy storage space like sodium, zinc, iron, you know, flow batteries, long duration type category batteries which do address some of these safety concerns and even supply chain concerns that come with the lithium ion. So our view is that innovation requires room to learn and improve and our insurance coverage helps promote this type of technology to deploy at scale. But it also manages these inevitable setbacks and allows the project owners and lenders to ride through business interruption losses when equipment is underperforming. So you know, we're not picking the winners. We just try to pick technology that we think has good potential and then we expect losses to happen along the way. And that is exactly what's been happening.

[B]

And Jan, looking ahead, what do you think needs to happen for TPI to scale further across clean energy?

[A]

Probably the key word is standardization. Now on the it's kind of both on the supplier but also on the buyer side. So on the supplier side, for example, you mentioned solar before. Solar warranties have been basically standardized for the last 20 years almost. This led to a quickly commercialized, commoditized, almost insurance product that I think the industry, the buyers have benefited from. On the buyer side or on the lender side, I think the investors would always like the borrower obviously to buy more risk transfer and the borrower always wants to spend less, especially when they believe that they are deploying the best stack, which is usually the case. So making all parties understand what is available to mitigate at what cost and kind of having a consensus that is good enough for both sides or not is very important. And this is where the example that you brought up and Jamie talked about, the Cerberus transaction is a really good story that supports that because it shows that creating mutual consensus around the cost benefit of a particular risk transfer leads to scale. And this is where we just really love being involved in those discussions with the major stakeholders and not just the buyer or the borrower. So we can explain how the coverage helps, how the coverage works, how automated the claims processes and not like a typical insurance claims process because this all helps people to get more comfort with how TPI will support. And this is probably a good point, maybe to make a reference, we have seen you had a podcast about credit insurance some time ago with the Texcel Group and it's important to make the differentiation between technology performance insurance and credit insurance. Credit insurance is a, is a non payment wrap, right? And as you know, as was said on your podcast, it just insurance is basically like it's stretching out the syndication. Essentially you're paying a margin of your lender's margin to the insurer by offloading risk. TPI is a very focused risk transfer solution that is designed to mitigate a particular risk that all stakeholders agree is one of the key risk factors in a project financing arrangement. So if there is a mutual understanding, you're paying much less for something that gives you a benefit that everybody agrees to have. And I think this is why that consensus and the understanding of how the coverage works and having all stakeholders being involved in the placement process is very important.

[B]

And speaking of all the stakeholders, Jamie, do you have any suggestions or practical takeaways for sponsors or lenders of what they should be doing differently today compared to a couple years ago?

[C]

Yeah, great question. So main takeaway is planning for long term risk mitigation. Storage is now being treated as long term infrastructure. It's getting integrated into really all aspects of the grid, into data centers, even off grid applications. No one can perfectly predict tariffs and bankruptcies, international and supply chain issues or even technology breakthroughs that are coming down the line over the course of a 20 year project. So the conversation today is less about eliminating risk, it's more about managing it intelligently. There's market swings, there's technology developments. So if sponsors and lenders can plan for the risk, plan for the unknown, they'll be better positioned to finance, to scale and really drive the clean energy economy, which is ultimately the goal of Ariel Green is drive more investment into the clean energy economy.

[B]

And Jan, I'll give you the last word from a big picture perspective. We talked a lot about how TPI is helping a lot of these projects get financing. Do you have any other thoughts about the role in supporting the energy transition?

[A]

I guess we will find out what the role is ultimately over the years. When we placed the first solar policy years ago, I was asking myself the question, is this the first and the last one or will there be more? And it became standardized, became a commoditized product. Now we think that the economics of Bass are different, but it looks slightly similar. It's becoming more commercialized. We think that the insurance product can become more commercialized but addressing different risks across the value chain. Whereas in solar it was pretty much straightforward. So standardization of warranties, how the buyers versus whether there will be a buyer's versus sellers market, the global supply chain, those dynamics will really define the evolution of the product. But what we can say is that we are equipped to support both. You know, we are equipped to support, support the commercialized product, which just means more capital, more insurance capacity because we have built a large consortium at Lloyds where we can deploy much more capacity into those risks that we had, you know, two years ago, not to speak, you know, seven years ago. And we can also support the solution space with the understanding of how genderwrite those one off those, you know, first of a kind technologies. So both structuring a scaled portfolio situations but also ensuring standalone first of a kind technology. So we hope it will be a mix of both. It has always been a mix of both with a growing trend in both categories, commercialized product and bespoke solution.

[B]

All right, I think we will leave it there. Thank you Jan and Jamie for your time today. Very interesting conversation.

[C]

Thanks Jim.

[A]

Thanks for having us again. Thanks, Jim.

[B]

You can find us online at WP www.projectfinance.law or send us an email at currentsordonrosefulbright.com Please rate, review and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your preferred podcast app. Our show today was produced by Emily Rogers. Stay ahead of the current.