K&M Advisors was pleased to lead the Pre-conference workshop on CWUIC SP at the 2022 CWWA Conference in The Bahamas, where twelve Caribbean water utilities expressed their strong support for its establishment in the region. CWUIC SP, as a center of excellence for disaster risk finance and management, will support water utilities in the Caribbean in increasing their resilience to natural hazards. It will pool water utilities to create economies of scale with diversified geographic risk to cover natural hazard risk. As a segregated portfolio (SP) under CCRIF SPC, CWUIC SP will be a first-of-its-kind facility providing Caribbean water utilities with access to a formalized response program and emergency preparedness training, parametric insurance, and funding for investments in priority resilience projects. CWUIC SP is the direct response to the request from utilities in the region for support in managing their increased risk to natural hazards in the face of climate change.  

Climate research projections for the Caribbean estimate that there will be a significant increase in the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events (for example, hurricanes, windstorms, tidal waves, and tropical depressions) in the twenty-first century that have the potential for substantial damage. Caribbean jurisdictions are among the most heavily exposed locations on earth to natural hazards. Infrastructure and services, including water utilities, in the Caribbean have suffered tremendous losses from disasters, and climate-induced events will exacerbate damages as Caribbean territories face the cumulative impact of multiple events.  

In the wake of disasters, the recovery of water utilities in the Caribbean becomes critically important to safeguarding the health and to the economy. However, the insurance currently available to water utilities in the Caribbean to help them recover from natural hazards is often not affordable and typically provides insufficient cover. Currently, water utilities in the Caribbean face the following:  

• Insurance premiums are expensive and low amounts of natural hazard coverage are currently available for water utilities from existing insurance providers 

• Few utilities purchase insurance, effectively “self-insuring” for losses of this kind 
• Forecasted intensity/severity of tropical cyclones and other events are likely to increase 
• There are increasing costs to repair the damage.  

While different levels of vulnerability across the jurisdictions exist, water utilities in the Caribbean are exposed to common natural hazards. CWUIC SP will benefit from economies of scale and provide insurance on improved terms versus what utilities could obtain individually on their own. Additionally, technical assistance support from CWUIC SP will support water utilities in the Caribbean in increasing their resilience to natural hazards.  

CWUIC SP’s primary objective is to help utilities recover from natural hazards. To accomplish this, CWUIC SP will have three components. Together, these components will build the resiliency of the water utilities and the communities they serve. These three components are: 

• Component 1: The CWUIC Response Program will provide support for preparedness planning and early recovery assistance among participating water utilities.  
• Component 2: Parametric insurance will provide coverage against natural hazards and provide quick liquidity after a qualifying disaster event.  
• Component 3: The CWUIC Resilience Program will facilitate access to funding from development banks and other financial institutions for priority resilience projects.  

Renewable energy is a growing and ever-changing industry. Despite the complexities and nuances of the field, K&M’s team continues to expand its presence in the fastest-growing energy source, providing a comprehensive range of technical and commercial advisory services to diverse renewable energy projects. K&M has worked on over 3,900 MW of renewable energy due diligence in emerging markets, including over 110 technical, commercial, and market due diligence assignments globally.

Along with other technologies, our recent focus has been on wind power. We understand its advantages as a clean and renewable energy source and its cost-competitiveness with conventional thermal power generation. K&M has advised clients on planning, developing, or acquiring wind energy projects. K&M’s wind generation clients include utilities, investors, developers, and multilateral agencies in Latin America, the Caribbean, the Middle East, and Sub-Saharan Africa. Services provided to these clients include building or reviewing financial models to calculate LCOE or project and equity returns, estimating emissions reduction, reviewing project agreements (PPA, EPC, O&M) to identify and assess technical and commercial risks, regulatory review or development, technical advisory (site visits, wind resources, technical configuration assessment), market and dispatch analysis, and more.

Unlike traditional consulting firms, many of our staff have designed, built, owned, and operated power generation assets in developing countries. K&M is keenly aware of the consequences of projects that lacked thorough assessment and appropriate risk mitigation since inception. K&M conducts due diligence with the same excellence and attention to detail as we would for our projects.

Hence, K&M projects have concluded with significant achievements, such as bankable contract terms, calculating LCOE and emission that demonstrate the role of wind generation in least-cost generation expansion planning, identifying technical and commercial project risks and mitigation measures, and in general, giving solid arguments to investors, lenders, utilities, governments and regulators to support wind generation projects.

K&M is proud to announce that it has been ranked highly among global leaders by Project Finance & Infrastructure Journal Global (IJ Global). This ranking includes regional power and infrastructure project advisors, development banks, and legal experts. K&M has been recognized as one of the top financial advisors in 6 separate categories.

IJ Global League Table Report K&M Rankings:

#4 (tied) – Power Project Finance Financial Advisors
#10 (tied) – Power Infrastructure Financial Advisors
#7 – Renewables Project Finance Financial Advisors
#14 – Renewables Infrastructure Financial Advisors
#16 – APAC Project Finance Financial Advisors
#16 – APAC Infrastructure Financial Advisors

K&M is excited to be acknowledged as a leader in the power and renewables industry. We look forward to continued growth with our clients and beyond.

K&M is excited to welcome Mrs. Cristina Cano Sokoloff to the K&M team as Director, Policy and Regulation.

Mrs. Cristina Cano is a financial specialist and industrial engineer with 14 years of experience advising private investors, governments, international financial institutions, and public and private utilities on the economic, financial, transactional, and institutional aspects of infrastructure projects. Mrs. Cano has extensive experience building financial models used for project structuring, valuation, tariff design, business planning, and feasibility of energy, water, and transport projects. She has developed financial models for large transactions and conducted financial and economic analysis of projects and investments in over 20 countries in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Africa. Mrs. Cano has a graduate degree in Finance from ESADE Business School, Universidad Ramón Lull in Barcelona, Spain, and an undergraduate degree in Industrial Engineering from the Universidad de los Andes in Colombia. Born in Colombia, she is a native Spanish speaker, and fluent in English.

K&M is pleased to welcome Ms. Natalie Tsukano to the K&M team as Senior Analyst, Transaction Services.

Ms. Natalie Tsukano is a Senior Analyst on the Transaction Services team, where she provides economic, financial, and market analysis for energy projects. Prior to K&M Advisors, Ms. Tsukano was a Senior Consultant at Deloitte, where she provided economic and financial analysis for multinational companies for cross-border tax compliance, M&A, and business restructuring. She received her Master’s degree in Energy, Resources, and Environment from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and holds a Bachelor’s in Transcultural Studies from Waseda University.

K&M is a strong supporter of West Africa’s clean energy transition. Presently, many countries in West Africa are still dependent on petroleum-based fuels for power generation. With this in mind, K&M has developed a framework for assisting large energy users transition from petroleum-based fuels to cleaner energy sources, such as LNG.

In Guinea, approximately 38% of the on-grid energy generated in 2020 was from diesel or HFO plants. Additionally, a significant number of bauxite and gold mines generate their own electricity with diesel and HFO power plants. In Sierra Leone, approximately 10% of the on-grid installed capacity is fueled by diesel or HFO. Similarly to Guinea, Sierra Leone has many mines and industries that have diesel or HFO power plants. This is also the case in Liberia.

To ease this transition, K&M worked with the IFC in 2020 and 2021 to identify and assess the business case for mines and large off-grid energy users to switch from HFO/diesel to natural gas which could be sourced from an LNG terminal HUB that is being developed in Freetown, Sierra Leone.

During this study, K&M identified a potential market of 477,000 tpa in Guinea, 158,000 in Sierra Leone and 29,000 in Liberia. K&M is now working to progress the concept further. K&M is working with a fuel supplier that has a large operation in Africa to assist them in the development of an LNG logistics solution for supplying mines in an around the Kamsar-Boke corridor. Additionally, K&M is also supporting the owner of a thermal power plant in Conakry to analyze the conversion of their thermal plant to gas and expanding it to meet future firm energy requirements.

Both initiatives, if implemented, will have a positive impact in terms of reducing CO2 emissions and reducing energy costs. LNG proves to be an excellent alternative to other fuel sources—considering its cost-effective nature and lower carbon footprint. K&M is ready to guide clients that are interested in converting to or developing LNG power projects.

K&M is pleased to welcome Mr. Nicholas LaBriola to the K&M team as Manager, Technical Services.

Mr. Nicholas LaBriola is a Manager on the Technical Services team with extensive experience in engineering and commissioning in the Power, Nuclear, and Oil, Gas, & Chemical industry. Prior to K&M Advisors, Mr. LaBriola was a Mechanical Design and Commissioning Engineer at Bechtel focusing on power plant system design, equipment sizing and technical specification development for Nuclear, Natural Gas, and Petrochemical plants. He worked to develop technical procedures for system and equipment testing and commissioning as an on-site system commissioning engineer. He possesses a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Maryland-College Park and is a licensed Professional Engineer (P.E.) in the state of Maryland.

K&M’s President, Alfonso Guzman, joined DUAGA’s recent webinar, “El Futuro Energético llega de Nuestros Muelles”, to discuss and share insights on hydrogen economy.

More details can be found here.

K&M is excited to announce its development and launch of a database and switching economics model to assist stakeholders in understanding the small-scale LNG market. To learn more about the database, follow the link here or contact LNGdatabase@km-advisorsllc.com for a demo.

Reflecting on the successes of 2021, K&M is excited to see what 2022 has in store! To read more about K&M’s 2021 highlights, click here.