Synopsis:
Energy Transition: Why net-zero is good for business. We will discuss the impact of energy transition on the financial health, competitiveness and ESG metric of companies with a focus on the oil and gas sector.
Tax Equity: We will discuss the opportunities to invest in renewable energy facilities to earn tax credits (to drive additionality) in conjunction with acquiring renewable energy credits to offset scope 2 emissions or receive carbon offsets and meet RE100 goals and the impact of tax equity policy on the markets addressing PTC, ITC, 45Q and supply/demand dynamics for projects and investors.
SPEAKER BIOS
Joan Hutchinson is managing director, offtake advisory, based out of Marathon Capital’s San Francisco office. Hutchinson focuses on advising corporate clients in setting and meeting sustainability goals including energy offtake agreements, carbon reduction and energy transition strategies. She also advises developers on physical and financial offtake agreements to support financing and enhance project value. She has advised Nestlé, TC Energy and Tokyo gas on recent sustainability initiatives.
Hutchinson has over 25 years of experience in North American energy markets and renewable energy project development. Before joining Marathon Capital, she was vice president of origination and business development at Ørsted A/S where she led the origination for wind, solar and storage projects resulting in over 1600 MW of transactions in three years. Many of the transactions she completed were power purchase agreements with first-time corporate buyers.
Prior to Ørsted, she was SVP origination and marketing for Ridgeline Energy responsible for negotiating contracts for the sale of power and renewable energy credits from renewable projects, leading solar development and the acquisition of wind and solar projects. She also was director origination at Citigroup Energy and held various origination and trading positions with Powerex, Inc.
Hutchinson received a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Victoria in Victoria, B.C. and holds her Series 79 license.
Matt Shanahan is a managing director at Marathon Capital and leads the firm’s tax equity practice. He has over 25 years of experience in structuring, syndication and management of large, complex corporate finance transactions.
Since joining Marathon in 2010, Shanahan has closed over $3 billion of tax equity related transactions in the solar and wind sectors including partnership flips, sale-leasebacks and tax-advantaged restructurings.
Before joining Marathon Capital, Shanahan held senior investment banking positions at The CIT Group, Newcourt Credit Group, Bank of America Leasing and Capital Group and The Deerpath Group. In those positions, he was responsible for structuring and syndicating U.S. domestic tax leases, U.S. project finance leveraged leases, U.S. and U.K. cross-border tax leases, partnership financings and structured debt financings. Throughout his career, he has focused on tax-based financings in the energy and transportation sectors including those for hydroelectric, geothermal, natural gas, solar, wind, coal generation facilities, Section 29 tax credit monetization, rail operating leasing partnerships and corporate and commercial aircraft.
Shanahan received a bachelor’s degree in economics from Kenyon College and an MBA from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University. He holds his Series 7, 24, and 63 licenses.