We are somewhat different in how we are structured — for one your counterparty on Renewables.org will be solar developers who are likely more credit-worthy than the individual borrowers you lend to on Kiva.
Renewables.org is an environmental non-profit, so the first order effect of what we do is prevent carbon emissions by helping to accelerate solar development in the Global South.
Incidentally, there are great second order benefits to building solar like jobs created, a more reliable power grid, and more resilient economic development.
We barrow money from our investors on our site and lend it to regional solar developers who finance commercial solar. We return principal to our investors at a 0% rate of interest and charge the developer a reasonable rate of interest which is used to fund growth and product development.
Since we are a non-profit, we could not lend out money for free since that would be a private for-profit entity benefiting from our non-profit status.
Hey, I am cofounder and CEO of Renewables.org — Lassor Feasley.
Renewables.org works with a network of Global South solar developers who have a large pipeline of unfunded solar projects. Using a Kiva like interface, you can join our site and help get these projects off the ground for as little as $25 dollars.
When you invest on Renewables.org, you start earning monthly repayments — which continue for five years. These repayments are paid out of the revenue earned by solar projects already in our portfolio as they generate and sell power to the grid.
As with Kiva.org — you don't make a financial return on Renewables, but you do create a carbon impact we believe is far greater than virtually any other investment or carbon offset product, dollar for dollar.
Glad to hear it's a non-profit but do you publish executive compensation?
Particularly given these are loans to businesses, it sounds like lots of people are making a profit from these projects, but not the people actually putting up the money to fund them. It's a shame that this isn't an actual investment opportunity, as it seems like an interesting space.
Solar panels are fairly simple and inexpensive to install, relative to other energy sources. Best of all, they can be scaled to on-site demand since there is not a large upfront cost.
I would not say that is the problem we are solving. The problem as I see it is that most people have no idea what they actually own through their investment. We make it simple to know through great design and communication, that carries through from the financial structuring to the UI/UX, we are doing it all custom from the ground up.
We start with solar because its a pretty safe investment and people love it.
My frustration comes partially due to some of my personal circumstances:
-Filthy unlanded tech scribe peasant.
-Have some savings, it is time to invest, but I don't have hundreds of thousands.
-Cannot afford land close enough to where I live (Tokyo) to fruitfully manage it.
-Due to legal reasons, there is a language barrier to the better ones among more accessible investment platforms I have found I can use.
I would love to be able to invest something like a couple thousand dollars in an endeavour such as Legends Solar. I would like to get into a real investment of some sort. Ideally without prohibitive amounts of red tape.
The exact legal and financial structuring is still in progress. We will likely use a structure similar to that used by Reg A+ crowdfunding platforms like Masterworks.io. In fact, I've been in regular contact with their GC to validate this. There are other structures we could use, as well.
My plan is to keep things simple, to answer your other question. As little abstraction and structured securitization as possible. We want it to be as close to a one-for-one analogy for true direct equity ownership in an actual panel as we can make it.
We are currently working with accredited investors, but we are working to launch a product for retail investors. Recent changes in crowdfunding regulation, Reg A+ in particular, make our lives a bit easier, and we have some very committed finance partners working to structure a financial product that will be appealing to retail investors.
Often new solar facilities come with tax benefits (ITC and MACERS depreciation) that the power consumer is unable to monetize - this is particularly true of non-profits and other businesses with very low tax bills. So they sell their solar facility to a private investor who is better able to exploit the tax benefits (i.e. people and orgs who have a lot of highly taxable income).
Legends can come in either at the beginning of that life cycle by selling off the tax equity to private investors and the panels themselves and the revenue they generate (i.e. sponsor equity) to retail investors. We can also come in after the tax benefits have been exploited (5-7 years after commissioning) and purchase the solar facility from the tax motivated investor.
In the future, we plan to bring project finance in house and do some origination work, as well. We are still at the start of our journey.
Absolutely! That could be one of our next categories after solar. Depending on the facility, there could be on-site battery storage owned and operated by other non-Legends investors for the time being.
It turns out its tough to get exposure to direct equity in renewable infrastructure, particularly as a retail investor. Do you mind if I put that in my business plan?
