On February 8, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced that 312 projects have been selected to be financed with tax-credit bonds in the second round of volume cap allocations under the Clean Renewable Energy Bonds (CREB) program. The first round of allocations was distributed in November 2006.
According to a press release, the IRS reviewed 342 applications from 33 states pertaining to 395 projects for $897 million of CREB financing. Approximately $477 million of CREB volume cap was available for allocation to qualified issuers. CREB volume cap allocations are awarded on a "smallest-to-largest" project basis.
"Governmental borrowers" submitted applications totaling $728 million to finance 367 projects with an average project size of about $2 million. Governmental borrowers in 28 states will receive $263 million of volume cap allocations ranging from $15,000 to $2.95 million. As was the case in the last round of allocations, it appears that the majority of the bonding authority went to school districts and other "governmental entities," not utilities with an obligation to serve.
"Cooperative borrowers" submitted applications totaling about $170 million to finance 28 projects with an average project size of about $6.1 million. Cooperative borrowers will receive about $143 million of volume cap allocations for projects in 13 states ranging from $300,000 to $30 million.
There were 156 proposed projects in California, 57 in Minnesota, 23 in New Jersey, 17 in Washington, 13 in Nebraska, 12 in Montana, 11 in Illinois and 10 in Wisconsin. Applications ranged in size from $15,000 to $38.5 million.
To view the list of entities that received allocations, go to: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-tege/creb_2007_disclosure.pdf. The IRS did not release specific information about those entities that applied but did not receive allocation.