2015 Deal of the Year: Non-Traditional Financing

Who won this year's Deal of the Year award for Non-Traditional Financing? The winner will be honored on Thursday, December 3 at the Waldorf-Astoria in Manhattan, and later that night will compete with winners in the seven other categories for the right to be named The Bond Buyer's 2015 Deal of the Year.

VOICE OVER: Every year, millions of people come to Hawaii to enjoy the sun. This year, the bond buyer's non traditional Deal of the Year Award goes to a financing that will help Hawaii citizens harness its' abundant sunshine to produce clean power. The $115 million of Green Energy Market Securitization Bonds take advantage of a financing structure that has been demonstrated to the market, rate reduction securitization. The state agreed to impose and collect a green infrastructure fee on bills paid by customers of the states' three publicly regulated utilities.

Revenues of that fee secure the taxable bonds. The debt service coverage created by that structure landed the deal triple A ratings across the board, creating a low cost pool of capital that can be used to issue loans to fund distributed solar and other green energy investments. The debt was sold as green bonds, extending the universive buyers beyond traditional asset based investors to accounts focused on municipal bonds and socially responsible investors. The program has the ability to finance enough solar equipment to generate 44 megawatts and assist as many as 30,000 underserved Hawaii customers.