Adam Umanoff

Los Angeles

Corporate

Global Project Finance, Renewable Energy

Umanoff is the co-chair of Akin Gump's Project Finance and Renewable Energy practice and draws on more than 25 years of experience in the renewable energy field to help guide the firm's expertise in this arena. His contributions to renewable energy as whole go far beyond that as he has helped the fledgling industry expand into the fastest growing sector of the energy market.

Even with the industries' rapid expansion over the last few years, Umanoff sees the growth just beginning to take off.

"Currently renewable power sources comprise less than 4 percent of energy in the U.S.," Umanoff said. "California wants to have 33 percent by 2030."

That's a lot of ground to make up over the next two decades, but Umanoff is helping companies entrenched in the renewable energy sector find the financing to make that goal a reality.

Last summer he was integral in putting together a massive deal that will allow Terra-Gen Power to develop this country's largest wind farm. Located in California's Tehachapi Mountains, the 3,000 megawatt project will provide energy to over 275,000 residences in the state.

Other projects he's worked on read more like a science fiction plot. In April of this year, he helped close a deal for BrightSource Energy on a new solar thermal project in California's Mojave Desert. This isn't your average solar project with rows upon rows of panels that convert sunlight into energy, however.

"BrightSource has a leading technology where they build a tower and on top of it sits what is essentially a kettle," he said. "This is surrounded by thousands of mirrors that heat the water and create steam to generate energy."

The Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, as the project is called, will ultimately generate 392 megawatts of power. The project also will create an average of 650 construction jobs in the state over a three-year period and reduce carbon emissions by 13.5 million tons over the 30-year life of the plant.

It's benefits like this that make Umanoff feel like he "has the best job in the world."

But all these benefits would never have been possible if not for the intricate web of finance agreements that Umanoff was able to secure through his immense knowledge of the renewable energy sector. In some ways, the financing behind these projects is just as state of the art as the project itself and make use of new avenues of funding only recently made available.

"We were able to secure funding for it through a U.S. Department of Energy loan guarantee for innovative technology," he said. "The financing was over $2 billion, making it the largest loan guarantee of it's kind to date."

Working out complex debt structures that mitigate risks to potential investors allows for more and more projects like this one to receive funding, Umanoff said.

- HENRY MEIER