With an extensive commercial real estate background, Demetrios Panteleakis engages with Macmillan Group in Massachusetts as its president. The efforts of Demetrios Panteleakis have been essential in enabling high-profile solar and energy-efficiency projects to go forward, including those financed through Capital for Change. In particular, he innovated the underwriting process that underlies large-scale solar funding.
For utilities, the three major sources of solar financing are leases and loans, power purchase agreements (PPAs), and direct ownership. Third-party solar PPAs stand as the most significant driver of utility solar sector expansion in the United States. They offer a long-term, low-risk arrangement centered on fixed, highly competitive rates over a period of 20 to 25 years. Taking advantage of an extremely reliable fuel price (i.e., zero), PPAs recently beat out natural gas and wind on a pure cost basis.
Another distinct advantage of third-party solar PPAs is that, in a number of states, capital expenditures do not go toward goals that help meet sustainability and renewable portfolio standard milestones. The end result is that capital dollars remain available for other operational uses such as improving transmission infrastructure.
