Solar Specialists, Accountants Form Alliance

Stonefield Josephson advises companies on the business, financial and tax impact of their environmental practices through its Fiscally Green practice. The alliance with Sunlight Planet greatly strengthens the Fiscally Green platform, according to Garrison, who says that the alliance can now offerclients evaluating a renewable energy project an integratedsolution to address project feasibility, financial alternatives and implementation.

Sunlight Planet, founded in 2009, provides expertise in financingand legal structuring, capital solutions, program management and escrow funds administration in the deployment of renewable energy projects. Most recently, it was the lead legal, financial and regulatory adviser on the largest commercial wind turbine on Long Island, New York, and is currently the corporate advisor with respect to project finance, structuring alternatives and financial feasibility for projects aggregating more than five megawatts of rooftop solar. The company, which is now co-located with the Fiscally Green professionals at Stonefield Josephson offices in Century City, serves clients including REITs, manufacturing and distributioncompanies, EPCs and real estate developers.

The alliance between Sunlight Planet and Stonefield Josephson comes at a time of growth for solar and other renewable energy projects and for companies providing advisory services for such projects. For example, AMB Property Corp. and Southern California Edison recently announced plans to install 16,300 advanced solar panels on the roof of a 436,000-square-footindustrial distribution facility owned by an affiliate of AMB in the Inland Empire city of Rialto, the third such facility that SCE is operating in partnership with an industrial building owner in Southern California. In another related development, Los Angeles-based CB Richard Ellis announced a significant expansion of its solar energy services capabilities and an enhanced commitment to sustainable property ownership through the launch of CBRE Solar.

The new solar rooftop Rialto facility will generate one million watts of power and will be completed in time to help meet this summer's peak power needs of SCE customers, the utility says. It will join SCE installations already online in Fontana and Chino with a combined generating capacity of three million watts, part of a total of 250 million watts of solar generation at up to 100 Southern California sites that SCE plans to install during the next five years.

CBRE Solar will provide services to the company's clients, initially in the US and Canada. Its service offering includes solar power purchase agreements, roof leases, advisory services, project development services, project management services and solar project investment opportunities. It will provide these services in partnership with Smart Energy Capital, a solar finance, development and advisory firm, whose principals have managed a portfolio of more than 300 megawatts of solar projects.