Wellington Xiang, who lead the survey for “Wood Mac”, says he was only slightly surprised by the results. “On one hand, it might seem surprising - or even mathematically impossible - that literally 100% of the projects under consideration in this market could all have a positive basis, given the mechanism itself is specifically designed to result in net zero basis in the aggregate. But that’s before you hear about how carefully these developers have chosen their sites using proprietary techniques and decades of experience in the market.

“We have an entirely different underwriting criteria for power plants that are borderline mothballed, facing increasing societal pressure, and regularly get smoked by variable operating costs. When you have an opportunity to dump a few hunge into something like that….you gotta lean in,” said the anonymous source.

Dietrich said he was surprised by the reaction and disappointed he didn’t get to go through his whole spiel. “Yeah I had this whole speech planned. I usually do this whole thing where I make people feel short-sighted for just wanting the best economic terms while losing sight of ‘way more important things’ like value add, flexibility, patience, closing quickly, etc. As though I’m some sort of early stage development lender with a nuanced structure and legitimate claims at adding value. I know…it sounds ridiculous, but lots of folks fall for it,” said Dietrich.