New Energy Risk, Westfield Syndicate Launch New Lloyd’s Lineslip
New Energy Risk and Westfield Syndicate Have Launched a New Lloyd's Lineslip
AVON, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Specialist managing general underwriter in the global energy transition, New Energy Risk (NER), and leading insurer Westfield Syndicate have announced the launch of a new Lloyd’s lineslip focused on providing technology performance insurance and other innovative insurance products to the energy transition space. With the additional capacity available under the lineslip, NER continues to expand its platform to accelerate innovation in the energy transition space. NER’s insurance solutions enable its clients to advance the breakthrough technologies required to meet the world’s climate and sustainability targets. The capacity will be available, alongside NER’s existing capacity arrangements, to service demand arising in areas such as fuel cells, hydrogen, low-carbon fuels, carbon capture and U.S. tax credits. Guy Carpenter served as the sole placing broker and were responsible for securing the required capacity.
“With the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act in the U.S. and similarly ambitious support in the U.K., Europe and elsewhere, the energy transition is at an inflection point. Since 2013, NER has enabled over $4B of capital deployments and almost a quarter of that has been in the past 12 months. NER is proud to be operating with Lloyd’s and its history of innovation building the partnerships necessary to continue supporting this trend and bringing impactful technology to the market at scale.” said Tom Dickson, CEO of New Energy Risk.
“New Energy Risk are bridging the gap between insurance and the deployment of breakthrough technologies in renewable energy and at Westfield Specialty we are delighted to be able to support this. Tom and his team have a sophisticated approach to the challenges presented by new technologies and we are excited by the prospects of being a part of the transition journey alongside New Energy Risk.” Jeremy Shallow, Deputy Active Underwriter, Westfield Specialty Syndicate 1200
Rachel Turk, Chief Underwriting Officer, Lloyd’s said: “Insurance has a vital role to play in creating the environment in which new lower carbon technologies can reach scale and commercial viability and we are very supportive of thoughtful and disciplined underwriting that supports the goals of the global energy transition. We are delighted to see the allocation of risk capital to businesses focusing on the transition to renewable energy and with the recent launch of the TCX transition risk code, this will enable the market to further lean into the opportunities that transitioning to a lower carbon economy brings.”
“This new lineslip will enable New Energy Risk to provide insurance solutions to clients which encourages additional capital to develop renewable clean energy technologies. The Lloyd’s market is an efficient way for NER to use the lineslip to service growing insurance demand. Guy Carpenter is committed to helping clients source capacity for innovative solutions in a new era of risk.” Henry Sanderson, Head of Innovation & Emerging Risks, Global Specialties, Guy Carpenter.
About New Energy Risk
New Energy Risk is a leading provider of innovative technical risk transfer solutions to the sustainable industry worldwide and pioneered the development of large-scale technology performance insurance. It was founded in 2010 to provide complex risk assessment and serve as an effective bridge between clean-energy innovators and insurers enabling the commercialization of novel technologies and businesses driving the energy transition. Since then, New Energy Risk has helped its customers gain over $4 billion in financing and sales for renewable energy and new technology deployments. To learn more, please visit www.newenergyrisk.com
About Guy Carpenter
Guy Carpenter & Company, LLC is a leading global risk and reinsurance specialist with 3,500 professionals in over 60 offices around the world. Guy Carpenter delivers a powerful combination of broking expertise, trusted strategic advisory services and industry-leading analytics to help clients adapt to emerging opportunities and achieve profitable growth. Guy Carpenter is a business of Marsh McLennan (NYSE: MMC), the world’s leading professional services firm in the areas of risk, strategy and people. The company’s more than 85,000 colleagues advise clients in over 130 countries. With annual revenue of $23 billion, Marsh McLennan helps clients navigate an increasingly dynamic and complex environment through four market-leading businesses including Marsh, Mercer and Oliver Wyman. For more information, visit www.guycarp.com and follow us on LinkedIn and X.
Contacts
Media
Gregory FCA for New Energy Risk
Kara Lester
[email protected]
NER 2023 Sustainability Report
Sustainability is at New Energy Risk's core, highlighted in detail in our 2023 NER Sustainability Report. Our business model delivers performance insurance solutions to a wide range of energy technologies and related infrastructure projects and technologies that have a major impact on our world, from reducing emissions to creating more sustainable fuels, to finding new uses for municipal and industrial wastes, to new models for low-carbon transportation. We help drive these technologies to scale and foster greater customer adoption to accelerate a more sustainable society.
Read NER's latest sustainability report from our CEO, Tom Dickson, Chief Actuary and Managing Director of Underwriting Development, Sherry Huang, Senior Scientist, Shawn Lee and Manager of Business Development, Richard Riley. The report details the results of the sustainability efforts of NER’s client portfolio, where innovations to reduce carbon intensity for fuels and power, as well as to promote the circular economy and curb waste, have delivered measurable results amid the energy transition.
New Energy Risk and Ascend Analytics Support Leading Renewable Energy Infrastructure Fund
New Energy Risk and Ascend Analytics Support Leading Renewable Energy Infrastructure Fund on Merchant Battery Projects in ERCOT with Custom Revenue Insurance Solution
AVON, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--New Energy Risk (“NER”) and Ascend Analytics, LLC (“Ascend”) have announced the closing of an industry-first energy storage insurance policy providing coverage for the performance of Ascend’s battery storage forecasting and bidding optimization platform. The policy will enable the financing of a portfolio of grid-scale energy storage facilities in Texas’s ERCOT power market. NER is a leading insurance agency specializing in insurance solutions for technology in the energy transition that act as an effective bridge between technology innovators, their customers and lenders, and the insurance markets. Ascend is a leader in energy market valuation and dispatch optimization, whose independent economic assessments have supported over 100 project financings and whose SmartBidder™ platform conducts live dispatch operations across six ISO’s in the United States.
The policy ensures the performance of Ascend’s forecasting and SmartBidder™ technology stack to provide a revenue floor to the project over a multi-year term. Unlike alternative revenue risk transfer solutions, the offering both secures minimum revenues and permits the projects access to upside revenue from lucrative, high-volatility events that are regularly experienced in ERCOT.
Bringing to the market new energy storage capacity is a necessary element of the energy transition, adding flexibility and resilience to the grid to permit the interconnection of more renewable capacity.
“Ascend's storage valuation has supported a majority of batteries operating in competitive power markets. In addition to SmartBidder's proven bid optimization capability, Ascend leads the market in their ability to provide the analytics required to assess and actively manage energy storage market risk,” stated Tom Dickson, CEO at NER. “NER has been able to apply its modeling expertise of highly technical risks to Ascend’s robust framework to implement a precise transfer of risk.” continued Dickson.
“This offering with NER helps developers confidently deploy capital to support merchant storage operations by providing a revenue floor while preserving the upside potential of ERCOT’s more extreme events. The innovative downside risk coverage enabled the storage developer to earn minimum returns, facilitating asset financing and furthering the transition to reliable clean energy in Texas,” stated Gary Dorris, CEO of Ascend Analytics.
About New Energy Risk
New Energy Risk is a provider of innovative technical risk transfer solutions to sustainable industry worldwide and pioneered the development of large-scale technology performance insurance. It was founded in 2010 to provide complex risk assessment and serve as an effective bridge between clean-energy innovators and insurers enabling the commercialization of novel technologies and business cases. Since then, New Energy Risk has helped its customers gain over $3 billion in financing and sales for renewable energy and new technology deployments. To learn more, please visit www.newenergyrisk.com.
About Ascend Analytics
Ascend Analytics, an innovative leader at the forefront of the energy transition, offers advanced software and consulting services that capture the evolving and real-time dynamics of energy markets. The company provides its customers with optimized and comprehensive decision analysis that covers everything from long-term planning to real-time operations in the electric power supply industry. For more information on Ascend, please visit www.ascendanalytics.com.
Contacts
Media
Gregory FCA for New Energy Risk
Kara Lester
[email protected]
Ascend
Leela Gill
[email protected]
NER Releases its 2022 Sustainability Report
Sustainability is at New Energy Risk's core. Our business model delivers performance insurance solutions to a wide range of energy technologies and related infrastructure projects and technologies that have a major impact on our world, from reducing emissions, to creating more sustainable fuels, to finding new uses for municipal and industrial wastes, to new models for low-carbon transportation. We help drive these technologies to scale and foster greater customer adoption to accelerate a more sustainable society.
We are proud of our clients, who are committed to solving some of the world's most pressing environmental issues. Collectively, they are reducing that quantity of waste sent to landfill and building a circular economy, reducing dependence on aging centralized power grids, reducing transportation’s dependence on petroleum, and preventing harmful greenhouse gas emissions.
Read NER's latest sustainability report from our CEO, Tom Dickson, Chief Actuary and Managing Director of Underwriting Development, Sherry Huang, Senior Scientist, Shawn Lee and Manager of Business Development, Richard Riley. The report details the sustainability impacts of NER’s client portfolio, where innovations to reduce carbon intensity for fuels and power as well as to promote the circular economy and curb waste have delivered impact by multiple measures.
New Energy Risk Supports Yilkins’ Low-Carbon Fuel Production Projects with Custom Insurance Solution
MENLO PARK, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–New Energy Risk, (“NER”) a wholly owned division of Paragon, and provider of customized insurance technology solutions for energy transition projects, has provided Yilkins with a performance warranty backstop insurance program to support the company’s project pipeline. Yilkins supplies novel, patented technology and equipment for cost-effectively turning a wide range of organic residue streams such as forestry and agricultural residuals into standardized fuel products. Yilkins is involved in projects for the production of low carbon intensity fuels for a range of applications including industrial heat and power, green hydrogen, sustainable aviation fuels, and renewable chemicals. Yilkins’ process offers lower capital cost and uses significantly less energy than incumbent solutions. The latter translates into a favorable carbon index for novel biomass-based processes.
Yilkins has spent over five years developing its novel drying and torrefaction technologies. The insurance solution designed by New Energy Risk and provided by Markel Insurance SE supports the commercial deployment of Yilkins’ technology at various large international companies and enables expansion of its business worldwide. The insurance solution provides an efficient means for Yilkins to ensure the value and performance of its warranties to its customers without the need to heavily capitalize its balance sheet.
“We appreciate that Yilkins has put their trust and confidence in NER’s support to help grow their business and enhance customer adoption of their technology,” said New Energy Risk CEO, Tom Dickson.
New Energy Risk has a history of supporting technologies and projects that provide cleaner utilization pathways for non-traditional and difficult-to-manage waste and residual streams such as municipal waste, agricultural waste, and industrial residues.
“Yilkins’ technology has been rigorously developed and stress tested, enabling New Energy Risk and our insurance partners to support the value of the warranties,” said Brad Price, Managing Director for Due Diligence at New Energy Risk. “Qualified Yilkins certificate holders should feel confident knowing that a world-class warranty backstop is in place. After extensive technical due diligence, New Energy Risk is proud to stand behind Yilkins’ performance and workmanship.”
New Energy Risk used a proprietary techno-economic model that synthesizes scientific understanding, engineering analysis, as well as actuarial and financial expertise to assess the performance of Yilkins’ technology and its potential output of on-specification products. After its extensive assessment of the torrefaction technology and process, New Energy Risk developed a custom solution, to backstop Yilkins’ obligations under its warranty. The insurance program provides a significant enterprise risk mitigant for Yilkins and enhances the bankability of its warranty from the perspective of its customers.
“Collaborating with New Energy Risk aligns with Yilkins’ commitment to create sustainable value and contributing to the realization of carbon-negative initiatives and sustainable development goals,” added Rob Voncken, CEO of Yilkins. “The support and expertise provided by New Energy Risk’s insurance backing is essential in facilitating the implementation of new, sustainable biomass-based supply chain projects, leveraging Yilkins’ highly efficient and cost-effective conversion technologies.”
About New Energy Risk
New Energy Risk is a pioneer of large-scale, breakthrough technology performance insurance solutions. The company provides complex risk assessment and serves as a bridge between technology innovators, financiers, and insurers. Insurance policies are administered through New Energy Risk affiliate, Complex Risk and Insurance Associates, LLC, CA License #0I24307. Learn more: https://newenergyrisk.com/.
About Paragon
Paragon Insurance Holdings, LLC, formed in 2014, writes all commercial lines of insurance across more than 20 programs. Paragon’s industry-specific and general underwriting facilities offer insureds, retail agents, carriers, reinsurers and service providers unique product, service, capability, and results. Learn more: www.paragoninsgroup.com/.
About Markel
Markel is headquartered in Richmond, VA and has associates located across the globe. We are a diverse financial holding company serving a variety of niche markets. Our principal business markets and underwrites specialty insurance products. In each of our businesses, we seek to provide quality products and excellent customer service so that we can be a market leader. Our financial goals are to earn consistent underwriting and operating profits and superior investment returns to build shareholder value.
About Yilkins
Yilkins is a renewable technology company focused on the valorization of biomass and organic residues into renewable energy and valuable industrial and chemical products. Yilkins proprietary technology platform helps companies reduce their dependence on fossil fuels and lower the environmental impact of their industrial activities. Yilkins’ solutions offer high energy efficiency and cost-saving benefits, enabling the production of high-quality products from biomass residues. The company’s technology platform offers customized solutions in residue treatment, drying, torrefaction, and the production of high carbon containing products like biochar. Yilkins’ approach and technology provide the most profitable and sustainable drying and torrefaction technology, with low operational costs and energy consumption, and the lowest carbon footprint. For more information about Yilkins, visit www.yilkins.com.
Contacts
Media
New Energy Risk
Gregory FCA for New Energy Risk and Paragon Insurance Holdings
Kara Lester
[email protected]
Yilkins
Business Development
Joris Spaan
[email protected]
NER Releases its 2021 Sustainability Report
Sustainability is at New Energy Risk's core. Our business model delivers performance insurance solutions to a wide range of energy technologies and related infrastructure projects and technologies that have a major impact on our world, from reducing emissions, to creating more sustainable fuels, to finding new uses for municipal and industrial wastes, to new models for low-carbon transportation. We help drive these technologies to scale and foster greater customer adoption to accelerate a more sustainable society.
We are proud of our clients, who are committed to solving some of the world's most pressing environmental issues. Collectively, they are reducing landfills and building a circular economy, reducing dependence on aging centralized power grids, reducing transportation’s dependence on petroleum, and preventing harmful greenhouse gas emissions.
Read NER's 2021 sustainability report from our CEO, Tom Dickson, chief actuary and managing director of underwriting development, Sherry Huang, and senior scientist, Shawn Lee. The report details the climate, sustainability and environmental impacts of NER’s client portfolio, where innovations to reduce carbon intensity for fuels and power as well as to promote the circular economy and curb wastefulness have led to great impact in multiple measures.
New Energy Risk Announces Milestone as Clients Raise $3B in Capital, Also Announce Senior Promotions
Paragon Press Release: New Energy Risk Announces Milestone as Clients Raise $3B in Capital, Also Announce Senior Promotions
AVON, Conn., August 18, 2022 —New Energy Risk (NER), a wholly-owned division of Paragon Insurance Group, on June 30 surpassed $3 billion in capital raised by clients since inception, a pivotal marker as the company continues to support the deployment of innovative technology solutions to address climate change and other global challenges.
Learn more about this achievement in NER’s announcement, and more about some of NER’s clients via its case studies.
“This $3 billion milestone demonstrates the success of our products and underscores our commitment to ‘Underwriting a Greener Future,’” NER Chief Executive Officer Tom Dickson said. “We are at the forefront of providing insurance solutions to the innovators who are accelerating the green energy transition. The capital they raise is an indication of rapidly increasing investor demand for positive impact.”
Building on this momentum, NER is announcing that Chief Actuary Sherry Huang, a seven-year veteran of the company, is expanding her role to also support transaction approval and execution as chief actuary and managing director of underwriting development. Brad Price is being promoted from principal engineer to managing director of technical due diligence. Brentan Alexander has stepped down as president of NER and will be joining an emerging technology firm in the coming weeks. He has been a key leader in the success of NER since joining in 2012 and will remain involved as a consultant to NER for an extended period of time.
“Congratulations to the NER team and to Brad and Sherry on their additional responsibilities and to Brentan on his new endeavor,” said Andy Borst, Paragon’s president of E&S and International. “The $3 billion in capital raised is a major achievement that confirms NER as a leader in providing innovative solutions and underscores Paragon’s commitment to investing in and supporting businesses that help address climate change and other global challenges.”
About New Energy Risk
New Energy Risk is a pioneer of large-scale, breakthrough technology performance insurance solutions. The company provides complex risk assessment and serves as a bridge between technology innovators, financiers, and insurers. Insurance policies are administered through New Energy Risk affiliate Complex Risk and Insurance Associates, LLC, CA License #0I24307.
About Paragon
Paragon Insurance Holdings, LLC, formed in 2014, writes all commercial lines of insurance across more than 20 programs. Paragon’s industry-specific and general underwriting facilities offer insureds, retail agents, carriers, reinsurers and service providers unique product, service, capability, and results. Visit: https://www.paragoninsgroup.com/.
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New Energy Risk Clients Surpass $3 Billion of Capital Raised for the Energy Transition
New Energy Risk Clients Surpass $3 Billion of Capital Raised for the Energy Transition
New Energy Risk supports the financing of innovative technologies solving global challenges. Today we are pleased to announce that we have helped our clients raise over $3 billion of capital for their projects and assets—bridging the gap between development and commercial scale deployment—from capital providers including Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley, KeyBank, NY Green Bank, Crédit Agricole, and others. By enabling access to deeper pools of capital and lowering the cost of that capital, New Energy Risk is Underwriting a Greener Future™.
The $3 billion in capital raised by our clients represents a sizable investment to scale breakthrough, commercially viable technologies. However, we are just getting started. To tackle our climate crisis, we know that thousands of billions of dollars are needed. Project finance and asset finance transactions with performance insurance are critical for advancing innovation, and New Energy Risk is in a unique position to provide this valuable support.
Our clients entrust us with privileged information about their technologies and businesses and we have the acumen to understand this better than traditional financiers. We know what risks those financiers are (and are not) willing to take. With our help, financiers can make more confident decisions to invest in cutting edge technologies that they may have otherwise overlooked.
This investor confidence stems from the protection from losses associated with underperformance that our bespoke risk transfer solutions provide. By transferring risk from the capital markets to the insurance markets, we enable and make less expensive the investment needed to advance novel technologies. Faster and cheaper capital accelerates our clients’ time to market, meaning their technologies, equipment, and projects are sold, financed, and operating at commercial scale sooner. After all, the energy transition cannot wait.
In a sense, we grease the wheels of a traditionally lengthy financing process, moving our clients and their customers toward deployment as quickly as possible with minimal disruptions to their operations. And now with a $3 billion track record, we are as confident as ever in offering our clients The Power of Certainty™. Read more about our clients’ outcomes in our case studies, and contact us today to discuss your project transaction.
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NER Acquired by Paragon Insurance Holdings
Paragon Acquires Greener Future and ESG-focused New Energy Risk
AVON, Conn., March 17, 2022 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — Paragon Insurance Holdings, LLC, a national MGA based in Avon, Connecticut, announces today the acquisition of New Energy Risk (NER), an insurance solutions provider to a wide range of energy technologies and related infrastructure projects and technologies that accelerate the energy transition.
The deal represents Paragon’s latest expansion into the global specialty Excess & Surplus lines market and brings additional high-rated reinsurance capacity providers supporting the ongoing build out of its portfolio.
“We’re excited to welcome NER to Paragon,” Ron Ganiats, CEO and co-founder of Paragon said. “With NER’s talent, carrier and reinsurance following, we will now be at the forefront of providing insurance solutions to the technology and project leaders that continue to move into the energy space.”
The announcement comes amid a strong period of growth for NER on the back of rising demand for its unique risk assessment and underwriting services. NER, in a push toward Underwriting a Greener Future™, continues to develop new products to meet shifts in the economy as energy sources transition toward sustainability and industries decarbonize. The company has also implemented its own Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) client framework during this critical period to better respond to these market trends.
“We understand the needs of energy technology companies, project developers and investors in this space. We translate the ‘arcane’ insurance market on their behalf and deliver what they need to secure cost-effective project finance and expedite customer adoption,” Tom Dickson, CEO of NER, said.
NER was founded in 2010 by Tom Hutton, former CEO of RMS and White Mountains Re, in partnership with then XL Group. In 2015, XL Innovate (XLI), an insurtech venture fund, was formed. NER became XLI’s first portfolio company. NER had been operating as a majority-owned subsidiary of AXA under its AXA XL brand.
“NER is at an inflection point,” said Hutton, who will remain involved as an advisor after the acquisition. “We are all committed to investing in its continued growth and to see the impactful results of its products and services, especially given the transformative support of Paragon.”
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NER Included in Report: Advancing Collaborative Action on Forest Biofuels in California
New Energy Risk Included in Report: Advancing Collaborative Action on Forest Biofuels in California
Matt Lucas participated in a working group addressing climate change, wildfire risk, and environmental justice to contribute to this report published by the Joint Institute For Wood Products Innovation.
Read the full publication here.
Low-carbon and carbon-negative fuels from non-merchantable forest biomass can help California attain its greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction targets and offer an opportunity to support sustainable forest restoration activities to reduce wildfire risk. Development and deployment of these innovative wood products can help the state of California increase the pace and scale of forest restoration efforts, strengthen regional capacity, support innovation, reduce vulnerability to wildfire, and promote carbon storage in long-lived products, including geologically sequestered CO2. These fuels can also play a pivotal role in California’s world-leading ambition to address climate change.
Yet successful commercialization of low- and carbon-negative fuels from forest biomass is far from certain, despite existing policy support. Fundamental challenges relate to the inability to secure long-term feedstock contracts from public lands, exclusion of forest biomass from public lands under the federal Renewable Fuels Standard, supply from municipal and agricultural biomass markets, and a lack of biofuels infrastructure situated near California’s forested communities. Without meaningful effort from relevant state and federal policymakers, California risks missing the opportunity to develop and deploy these fuels.