(1) An eligible applicant may apply to the board of the county or city and county in which it proposes to construct, expand, or upgrade an eligible clean energy project for assistance in the financing of the project. Subject to the requirements and limitations specified in federal law, the "Colorado Private Activity Bond Ceiling Allocation Act", part 17 of article 32 of title 24, C.R.S., and subsection (2) of this section, if the board approves the application, it may provide financing assistance by issuing tax-exempt private activity bonds in a minimum amount of five hundred thousand dollars for a geothermal energy project and one million dollars for any other type of eligible clean energy project on behalf of the eligible applicant.
(2) A board shall issue tax-exempt private activity bonds on behalf of an eligible applicant to finance an eligible clean energy project subject to the following requirements and limitations:
(a) The board shall enter into agreements with the eligible applicant under which:
(I) The board agrees to loan to the eligible applicant the net proceeds of the bonds issued so that the eligible applicant can finance all or a portion of the eligible clean energy project; and (II) The eligible applicant agrees that it has the sole responsibility to pay, either directly or indirectly through the board or a bond trustee, all financial obligations owed to bondholders and that it shall provide and maintain any reserve deemed necessary by the board to ensure that the financial obligations are paid;
The bonds issued shall specify that bondholders may not look to any county or cityand county revenues for repayment of the bonds. The bonds shall further specify that the only sources of repayment for the bonds are revenues provided by the eligible applicant, property of the eligible applicant, or credit enhancement obtained by the eligible applicant that may be pledged to the payment of the bonds; and
The repayment term for the bonds issued shall not exceed fifteen years for a geothermal energy project and ten years for any other type of eligible clean energy project and may, for a geothermal energy project only, be correlated to the revenue stream of the eligible clean energy project being financed by the bonds so long as the amount of scheduled bond payments for any fiscal year does not exceed seventy-five percent of the estimated amount of project revenues for the fiscal year.
Because private activity bonds are payable only from the sources specified in paragraph (b) of subsection (2) of this section, such bonds shall not be deemed to create county or city and county indebtedness or a multiple-fiscal year obligation within the meaning of any provision of the state constitution or the laws of this state, and a board may issue such bonds without voter approval.
The rates charged by an eligible applicant for the delivery of clean energy producedby an eligible clean energy project shall be set to allow recovery of all costs necessarily incurred to deliver the clean energy to a market, including, but not limited to, the costs of substation upgrades, transmission lines to the point of entry to the power grid of a cooperative electric association, and any wheeling charges imposed by a cooperative electric association.
Source: L. 2008: Entire part added, p. 1316, § 3, effective May 27. L. 2014: (1) and (2)(c) amended, (HB 14-1222), ch. 284, p. 1168, § 1, effective May 30.