May 20 (Bloomberg) — Suzlon Energy Ltd., the world’s
fifth-biggest wind-turbine maker, is in talks to repay investors
after defaulting on $209 million of U.S. dollar-denominated
convertible bonds in October, according to two people familiar
with the matter.

The company, the subject of India’s biggest convertible
debt default, may issue notes denominated in the U.S. currency
to fund the 2012 repayment, the people said, asking not to be
identified because the details are private.

Suzlon, based in the western Indian city of Pune, declined
to comment today in an e-mailed response to questions, saying
it’s “in a silent period” ahead of a quarterly earnings report
due May 30.

Suzlon Energy failed to redeem $175.8 million of zero-coupon notes and $32.8 million of 7.5 percent bonds which fell
due Oct. 11, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Its stock
was little changed as of 12:09 p.m. in Mumbai, after rising as
much as 3.1 percent to the highest since April 30.

India’s top wind-turbine maker ceded that position in the
financial year ended March 31 for the first time in at least a
decade, according to data from the Indian Wind Turbine
Manufacturers’ Association. Suzlon completed a 95 billion rupee
($1.7 billion) debt restructuring last month, which included
issuing shares to its lenders.

To contact the reporters on this story:
Natalie Obiko Pearson in Mumbai at
npearson7@bloomberg.net;
Anurag Joshi in Mumbai at
ajoshi53@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Katrina Nicholas at
knicholas2@bloomberg.net;
Reed Landberg at
landberg@bloomberg.net

May 20 (Bloomberg) — MEMC Electronic Materials Inc.’s
SunEdison LLC unit is seeking funding from the World Bank’s
private-sector financing arm to build a 50-megawatt solar plant
in Chile that plans to sell power at commercial rates.

The International Finance Corp.’s board plans to take a
decision on June 18, according to an investment proposal on the
IFC’s website. The IFC didn’t disclose how much it may invest in
the project. SunEdison said in March that the project would cost
$120.5 million.

The plant expects to sell power at prevailing spot-market
electricity prices, according to the proposal. It will be built
in Copiapo in Chile’s Atacama region using crystalline panels
from MEMC.

Solar plants normally get paid above-market rates in places
including Europe and Japan because solar power is more expensive
to generate compared to traditional fossil fuel-based grid
electricity.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Natalie Obiko Pearson in Mumbai at
npearson7@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Reed Landberg at
landberg@bloomberg.net

May 18 (Bloomberg) — The conditional approval of a natural
gas export terminal in Texas doesn’t necessarily open the
floodgates for overseas sales as the U.S. weighs how best to use
its growing energy resources.

The U.S. Energy Department said yesterday that exports from
the Freeport LNG project, partly owned by Dow Chemical Co. and
Osaka Gas Co., according to the venture’s website, offered net
economic benefits and reflected the “transformative impact” of
record gas production from hydraulic fracturing in shale rock
formations.

How much of that bonanza should be sold to non-U.S.
customers has been hotly debated in Washington in recent months
as the Energy Department weighs 20 applications for export
terminals. While industry groups welcomed the decision, analysts
were split on how quickly the export facilities will go forward.

“I think we need to see more than one to get an idea of
what the pace is going to be,” said Randy Bhatia, an analyst
with Capital One Southcoast in Houston. The size and scale and
complexity of a project may effect the pace of review, he said.

“We don’t think it’s going to open the floodgates” for
the department’s approval of other applications, Mihoko Manabe,
vice president and senior credit officer for Moody’s Investors
Service Inc., said in a phone interview.

Manabe said she expects the Energy Department to approve
LNG export facilities proposed by Dominion Resources Inc. of
Richmond, Virginia, and Sempra Energy of San Diego.

Sabine Pass

In addition to the Freeport project, the agency has already
approved Cheniere Energy Inc.’s Sabine Pass export terminal in
Louisiana.

“The four facilities, we believe, have a good chance of
going forward,” said Manabe, lead author of a Moody’s report
issued May 1 on the prospects for natural gas exports.

The decision drew wide praise from industry groups, as they
called on the department to quickly approve the remaining
applications. The announcement was “welcome news,” said Bill Cooper, president of the Center for Liquefied Natural Gas in
Washington. Natural gas is cooled to a liquid so that it can be
transported by tanker to overseas markets.

“The rain cloud in that otherwise beautiful sky is we
don’t know the timeline for moving forward,” Cooper said in an
interview.

Erik Milito, director of upstream and industry operations
for the American Petroleum Institute in Washington, said in a
statement that the announcement was a “step in the right
direction.”

More Pollution

The Sierra Club criticized the decision, saying it would
lead to more development of natural gas.

“More drilling means more fracking, more air and water
pollution, and more climate fueled weather disasters like last
year’s record fires, droughts and superstorms,” said Deb
Nardone, director of the San Francisco-based environmental
group’s Beyond Natural Gas campaign.

While oil and gas producers have lobbied for unfettered
exports, companies including Dow that use natural gas as an
ingredient for their products have argued for limits on overseas
sales, fearing they could cause prices to rise domestically.

Dow issued a statement supporting the Energy Department’s
decision, saying it reflected a “measured and balanced” review
of the issue. George Biltz, Dow’s vice president for energy and
climate change, said the U.S. should neither block exports
entirely nor open the floodgates to overseas sales.

“We like the decision because it’s not in either
extreme,” Biltz said in a phone interview.

Import Terminal

Less than a decade ago, when U.S. demand for gas looked
like it might outstrip supply, Dow invested in a Freeport import
terminal that would now be converted for exports. That
investment may mean the company would get revenue from sales to
non-U.S. customers, despite its opposition to large export
levels.

Biltz said Dow isn’t investing in the multibillion-dollar
effort to convert the terminal for exports.

Other limited partners in the Freeport LNG development are
Zachry American Infrastructure LLC and Freeport LNG Investments,
according to the venture’s website. ConocoPhillips and private
investor Michael Smith are co-owners of the management company
overseeing the original LNG import facility.

The Energy Department cited the changing energy landscape
in announcing conditional approval of the Freeport terminal,
which is jointly operated by Freeport LNG Expansion LP, and FLNG
Liquefaction LLC. The project calls for the installation of
refrigeration units, storage tanks and other equipment alongside
its existing gas-import terminal on Quintana Island about 65
miles (105 kilometers) south of Houston.

Transformative Impact

“The development of U.S. natural gas resources is having a
transformative impact on the U.S. energy landscape, helping to
improve our energy security while spurring economic development
and job creation around the country,” the department said in
its news release.

Bill Gibbons, a department spokesman, said President Barack Obama’s administration was addressing the issue “in a
responsible way” and would weigh applications on a case-by-case
basis.

After a preliminary review, it seems “the order provides
us everything that we requested in terms of the authorization
and we commend the Department of Energy on the thoroughness of
their review and consideration of exports and getting to the
right result,” John Tobola, general counsel of Freeport, said
in a telephone interview yesterday.

If all 20 projects were to win approval, they could ship
the equivalent of 41 percent of the total U.S. production this
year, according to Energy Department data.

FERC Approval

The Freeport LNG project must still win approval from the
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

The big hurdle was thought to be the Energy Department,
which must decide if the projects are in the national interest.
The department concluded that exports from the Freeport facility
are “likely to yield net economic benefits” to the U.S.

Freeport would be able to export as much as 1.4 billion
cubic feet of natural gas a day for 20 years. In May 2011, the
department conditionally approved Cheniere Energy Inc.’s Sabine
Pass LNG Terminal in Louisiana for a rate of as much as 2.2
billion cubic feet a day.

The Energy Department’s action yesterday is “an indication
that other projects, including our own Cameron LNG, will receive
this authorization soon,” Mark Snell, president of Sempra
Energy, said in a statement.

The power company is awaiting federal approval for exports
from a $6 billion to $7 billion expansion of its Cameron LNG
project in Hackberry, Louisiana.

‘Narrow Window’

“There is a narrow window opportunity for U.S. companies
to participate in the global LNG market,” Snell said.

In its release, the Energy Department cited an Energy
Information Administration forecast projecting production to
reach a record 69.3 billion cubic feet a day in 2013.

Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat and chairman of the
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said the Energy
Department’s decision to review applications individually was
consistent with his view that a “measured approach on exports
will provide the greatest advantage for the U.S. economy.”

To contact the reporters on this story:
Jim Snyder in Washington at
jsnyder24@bloomberg.net;
Edward Klump in Houston at
eklump@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Jon Morgan at
jmorgan97@bloomberg.net;
Susan Warren at
susanwarren@bloomberg.net

(Corrects attribution in sixth paragraph.)

May 17 (Bloomberg) — Northwater Capital Management Inc., a
Canadian private equity investor, is backing startup RedWave
Energy Inc.’s efforts to convert industrial waste heat into
electricity using nanomaterials.

Northwater invested $1 million this month and provided $2
million last year through a Series A financing round, according
to RedWave Chief Executive Officer James Nelson. The company
will seek funding through a Series B round this year after
starting work on a prototype that may be tested in power-plant
conditions.

More than half of the energy produced in the U.S. in 2011
was wasted, including heat from industrial operations and
generating electricity, according to estimates from the U.S.
Energy Department’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Glen
Ellyn, Illinois-based RedWave will take advantage of this energy
that otherwise goes unused, said D’Arcy Walsh, a Northwater
associate.

“The conversion of waste heat to electricity presents a
huge opportunity, and it’s a much underserved market,” Walsh
said by telephone today. Waste heat generated in the U.S. each
year “has a value somewhere north of a trillion dollars.”

The value of heat wasted at power plants alone may be as
much as $136 billion a year, Nelson said.

RedWave uses so-called nano-antennas developed by the
Energy Department that work much like radio or TV antennas to
collect infrared energy, Nelson said. The flexible sheets are
made from common metals such as nickel and capture “low
temperature” waste heat, temperatures below about 200 degrees
Celsius (392 degrees Fahrenheit).

Flue gases emitted from smokestacks are one source of low-grade waste heat at power plants that is “more than hot
enough” to produce power with RedWave’s system, Nelson said.

“We can go after much lower temperature, and that’s where
the abundance of waste heat is,” Nelson said.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Andrew Herndon in San Francisco at
aherndon2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Will Wade at
wwade4@bloomberg.net

May 17 (Bloomberg) — Equitix Ltd., a London-based
investment company, is investing 10 million pounds ($15 million)
in a project to replace inefficient heating systems in public
and private facilities with wood-powered boilers.

Equitix is investing 4.9 million pounds through its Energy
Saving Investments fund, whose investors include the U.K. Green
Investment Bank, it said today in an e-mailed statement. It’s
sourcing a further 5.1 million pounds from its Energy Efficiency
Fund. The plan may support as many as 60 projects that will cut
bills by as much as 30 percent and carbon-dioxide emissions.

The project will provide “a low-cost and straightforward
way for a range of organizations like schools, leisure centers
and local businesses to switch their old, inefficient and high
emission boilers for new energy-efficient biomass ones; saving
energy, cutting emissions and saving them money,” GIB Chief
Executive Officer Shaun Kingsbury said in the statement.

The investment is being made through Roundwood Energy Ltd.,
which will fund, install, maintain and fuel the heating systems
for as long as 20 years. It’s working with Woodpecker Energy
Ltd., a maker of wood pellet and wood chip biomass boilers.

Energy efficiency is a priority of the GIB, which started
in November with 3 billion pounds of funding. It’s channeling 50
million pounds into efficiency through the Equitix fund, which
will be matched by private investors. Only projects valued at
less than 30 million pounds are eligible for funding.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Louise Downing in London at
ldowning4@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Reed Landberg at
landberg@bloomberg.net

May 17 (Bloomberg) — India’s biggest lender, State Bank of
India, plans to work with Jain Irrigation Systems Ltd., the
largest irrigation-equipment maker in Asia, to help farmers
reduce water usage and increase productivity.

Jain, based in Jalgaon, India, will help the bank identify
Indian farmers in need of financing for micro-irrigation
systems, State Bank said in an e-mailed statement.

Drip and sprinkler irrigation systems increase the
profitability of farms by allowing more land to be irrigated
with less water and help boost yields, according to the
statement yesterday.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Natalie Obiko Pearson in Mumbai at
npearson7@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Randall Hackley at
rhackley@bloomberg.net

May 17 (Bloomberg) — Toshiba Corp., the Japanese maker of
flash-memory chips, elevators and steam turbines, has begun
production of power transformers at a new plant in Brazil.

Toshiba Infrastructure South America Ltd., a Brazilian unit
of the Tokyo-based company, opened the 6 billion yen ($59
million) factory in Betim, Minas Gerais state, Toshiba said in a
statement today. It’s the second factory to make power
transformers for the Brazilian unit.

The Betim factory will make medium- to large-capacity
transformers while the factory in Contagem will focus on small-capacity units, according to the statement.

“Many South American countries are upgrading their social
infrastructure and planning to promote development of smart
grids,” Toshiba said in the statement.

The power transformer market in South America is forecast
to expand to $250 billion in 2015 from $210 billion in 2012,
according to the statement.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Chisaki Watanabe in Tokyo at
cwatanabe5@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Reed Landberg at
landberg@bloomberg.net

May 16 (Bloomberg) — JA Solar Holdings Co., the largest
solar-cell producer by capacity, repaid $119 million in
principal and interest for bonds due yesterday.

“JA Solar is committed to meeting all of our debt
obligations and managing our balance sheet prudently to protect
the interests of our stakeholders,” Chief Executive Officer Jin Baofang said in a statement today from Shanghai-based JA Solar.

Investors are concerned other Chinese solar companies may
not make bond payments. Suntech Power Holdings Co. defaulted on
$541 million in debt March 15, and LDK Solar Co. paid only a
portion of $23.8 million due last month. Renewable-energy
companies based in Hong Kong and China are scheduled to repay
$3.5 billion in debt this year, according to data compiled by
Bloomberg.

JA Solar’s American depositary receipts slipped 4.7 percent
cents to $5.45 at the close in New York. Each ADR is worth five
ordinary shares.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Justin Doom in New York at
jdoom1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Reed Landberg at
landberg@bloomberg.net