I am proposing a new form of investment, consisting of units redeemable in the production of the turbine as and when built. The proposition is simply to sell for value now Units which are redeemable in (say) Kilo Watt Hours. The proceeds pay for the development and construction of the turbine.

Part (proportional "Equity Shares") of the unsold stream or "Pool" of production would go to continuing "stakeholders", probably a land owner (but this could be the Community); part to an Operator; and the balance should IMHO accrue to the Community.

Once a turbine is built and operating, the risk is lower than when it is yet to be built, and investment in it is attractive to an entirely different constituency of risk averse investors to whom risk friendly development investors may "exit".

The art (your art) is to work out what price these units are "worth" pre-development, and this price reflects the development risk with which you are familiar.

The economic calculation in an economy where energy has been monetised in the way I advocate is entirely different to one in a deficit-based economy. Any energy project which is expected to create or save more energy than has been used in its construction and/or operation will be viable.

I believe that the way in which we can achieve the massive investment we need is initially to re-finance the existing secured debt through "unitisation". This will then "free up" the development capital needed to build new renewables and finance energy savings (the cheapest energy of all).

The key to successful development IMHO is a legal and financial structure whereby the interests of the stakeholders are aligned so everyone has the same interests - including the developer and financier, of course.

This is where partnerships come in, and I believe that such structures minimise development risk. They don't remove it altogether, and I have already come across a couple of transactions which did not stack up using any enterprise model. eg shipping biomass into an urban location for power generation, where the consultant recommended an LLP model over an ESCO but concluded that nothing worked at current prices.

And you still haven't said why credit intermediaries are necessary... :-)

"The future is already here -- it's just not very evenly distributed" William Gibson