On March 17, McDermott Energy & Project Finance Partner, Christopher Gladbach, will be moderating the panel discussion, “The New Capital Stack: What’s Changing in Today’s Timelines, Markets & Realities” at the Solar + Wind Finance & Investment Summit 2026.

Assembling components of the capital stack has always presented challenges for developers, but as project timelines expand so do a project’s capital needs. Additionally, institutional investors and other private capital are playing a more significant role as federal support wanes, creating more complex capital stacks, more coordination, and often 3rd party oversight. While there’s plenty of powder in the markets, the cost of capital is up, queue wait times are longer, and interconnection costs have ballooned in many regions. This session will assess how capital stack strategies and finance trends are adapting approaches to stretch over longer timelines, diversifying stacks to mimic the certainty of PPAs and counteract the recent uncertainty, and accounting for potential shifts in market conditions.

• Re-evaluating how projects are financed and managed: has the current administration, new laws, interest rates, tariffs, and other economic factors changed the approach to capital? Are tiered revenue-sharing, infrastructure funds, or offtake-backed securitization becoming common?
• Projects are taking longer to get to NTP: How is this changing when a project is de-risked from a lender perspective? Is it changing late stage NTP development capital? Safe harbor requirements?
• Stretching the capital stack: How often are people seeing synthetic hedging tools and other mechanisms to enhance financial resilience? Are earlier partnerships, equity funds worth the loss of control? How are developers financing through delays? Is financing keeping pace with demand?
• Bigger deals, longer construction periods: Is tax credit sales giving some flexibility? How are projects handling early-stage costs, long-term debt, sponsor equity, mezzanine, and senior debt, and filling gaps? What about leveraged and short-term B loans or project bonds? Did equity costs follow debt in going up with interest rates and inflation?
• Risks: What risks are changing today? Is there transparency when money goes from refundable to non-refundable, and does development risk need equity to support that? Surety facilities to couple with equity? Are exit strategies more flexible, and if so, how?

For more information or to register, click here.