This report compares the costs, benefits, and implications of capturing the value of renewable energy tax incentives in three different ways – applying them against outside income, carrying them forward in time until they can be absorbed internally, or monetizing them through third-party tax equity investors – to see which method is most competitive under various scenarios. It finds that under late-2013 market conditions, monetization makes sense for all but the most tax-efficient project sponsors. Under a variety of plausible future policy scenarios relevant to wind and solar projects, however, the benefit of monetization no longer outweighs the high cost of tax equity, and it makes more sense for sponsors – even those without tax appetite – to use tax benefits internally rather than to monetize them. These findings have implications for how wind and solar projects are likely to be financed in the future, which, in turn, influences their LCOE. For example, under these scenarios, many wind and solar projects would likely forego tax equity in favor of cheaper sources of capital. This shift to lower-cost capital would, in turn, partially mitigate any negative impact on LCOE resulting from the policy change itself (e.g., in the case of tax credit expiration).

http://emp.lbl.gov/publications/analysis-costs-benefits-and-implications-different-approaches-capturing-value-renewable