Project Finance Associate

About the job

At Canadian Solar, our vision is to make lives better by bringing electricity powered by the sun to millions of people worldwide. As a leading manufacturer of solar panels, inverters, and energy storage solutions, we've been an industry front-runner since our founding in 2001. Our commitment to sustainability is reflected in all parts of our organization as we navigate the complexities of a booming industry.

Throughout Canadian Solar's subsidiaries, e-Storage, Recurrent Energy, MSS and CSI Solar Co., we invest in our employees' growth. Our training programs and promotional opportunities ensure we all can continue to learn. We understand the importance of work-life balance and provide various flexible work options to support our employees' well-being. Join our team to "Make the Difference" by creating a lasting positive impact on the world and the communities where we operate.

Company Summary: Recurrent Energy is a subsidiary of Canadian Solar Inc. and is one of the world's largest and most geographically diversified utility-scale solar and energy storage project development, ownership, and O&M platforms . Recurrent Energy is focused on bringing low-cost clean energy and meaningful economic development to communities across the globe.

With a strong track record of originating, developing, financing, and building nearly 11 GWp of solar and 4 GWh of battery storage power plants across six continents, Recurrent Energy has established a leadership position in both solar and battery storage project development . With a total pipeline of 27 GWp in solar and 63 GWh in battery storage. In addition, Recurrent Energy’s services business has 10 GW of solar and storage projects under operations and maintenance contracts.

Position Title: Associate , Project Finance

Department: Project Finance

Reports To: Managing Director, Head of Project Finance

Location: New York, NY

Position Summary

We are seeking a Associate to join the Project Finance team at Recurrent Energy, a subsidiary of Canadian Solar. This team member will be responsible for supporting/managing debt and tax equity capital raising for Recurrent Energy’s solar and battery storage projects as well as providing sophisticated financial modeling to identify creative solutions to profitability objectives . This role is highly visible within the organization and requires cross functional collaboration with many different internal and external groups . We are looking for someone with intellectual curiosity, high motivation, and excellent communication and process management skills that is pursuing a long-term career in project finance.

Responsibilities

• Provide leadership of financial modeling and profitability analysis:

• T ake responsibility over content and output of the project financing model. Provide guidance and quality control to future analysts regarding inputs, structure, etc. and confirm that the model adequately and accurately reflects the underlying transaction, current market conditions, optimized commercial results, and best practices

• Build bespoke structured financing models that accurately reflect terms of various financing vehicles and markets that are not otherwise captured in existing tools

• Demonstrate a strong understanding of the causal relationships between inputs and outputs of a model and identify multi-dimensional layers of improvement to overall profitability of projects

• Model profitability of projects under various financing structures (tax equity and debt) and help make corresponding project capital structure recommendations

• Provide leadership and coaching to future analysts in the team

• Independently manage third party financial models and consultant reports, and assist in negotiating transaction documents in a manner that is consistent with the overall project objective and strategy of the financing

• Collaborate with Business Analytics team to ensure that development-stage project models adequately reflect debt and tax equity market terms and structures

• Support deal leads for project financing transactions:

• Assist with preparation of marketing materials, ensuring the presentation materials are accurate , clean, and reflect the overall message and intention of the transaction

• Review and assist with negotiating term sheets and definitive documentation

• Coordinate with third party financing providers on due diligence and documentation

• Maintain responsibility for financial deal models for debt and tax equity transactions while working closely with external counterparties and internal teams

• Create proposals, information memoranda, presentations, project schedules and internal presentations

• Assist with gathering and presenting information for financial partners performing due diligence on Recurrent Energy’s projects

• Review of key contracts, term sheets, or other documents for impact on profitability, financial modeling, and overall financeability

• Facilitate flow of information between finance, development, power marketing, legal and engineering teams during transaction execution

• Manage deadlines and maintain accountability from cross-functional deal teams; lead peers across the organization with confidence and dedication.

• Repo rting relationships and interactions:

• Reports to Managing Director , Head of Project Finance.

• Interact and develop relationships with working teams of tax equity investors, lenders, and third party market consultants;

• Coordinate and collaborate with all internal stakeholders throughout the company that represent all stages of the projects’ lifecycle .

Requirements

• 3 - 5 years of relevant experience required .

• Bachelor’s Degree or equivalent work experience.

• Long-term career interest in renewable project finance capital raising and investing .

• Must have strong financial modeling and analytical skills .

• Strong verbal communication skills while prone to collaboration

• Expertise in modeling and structuring tax equity .

• Solid understanding of project finance and economic concepts .

• Expert understanding of power and financing markets .

• Highly proficient in MS Excel, MS Word, and MS PowerPoint .

• Solution and goal oriented .

• Growth mindset .

• Resourceful and comfortable working in an unstructured, entrepreneurial environment; this is a transaction-based environment where requirements and deadlines are dictated by deal flow .

• Strong quantitative aptitude with an extremely high level of attention to detail .

• Interested in working in a fast-growing industry that is making a tangible impact on climate change .

• Ability to translate complex quantitative analysis into written, deliverable insights .

• Highly driven, proactive, and hardworking .

• Self-starter that takes pride in optimizing financial models and overall work products .

• Travel required, 0-25%.

Recurrent Energy is an Equal Opportunity Employer (EOE). Qualified applicants are considered for employment without regard to age, race, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, disability, or veteran status.