Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) Finances SunEdison's Duke Energy (NYSE:DUK) Project

Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) will finance the final stages of the 17.3MW deployment of Duke Energy (NYSE:DUK) in Davidson County, NC, via SunEdison.

SunEdison is a subsidiary of MEMC Electronic Materials (NYSE:WFR).

"Bank of America Merrill Lynch is extremely pleased to help bring utility-scale solar power to our home market of North Carolina and build on our long-standing corporate relationship with MEMC," said Todd Karas, President of Banc of America Public Capital Corp.

The financing will be for the final two phases of the project, which is estimated to generate more than 510 million kilowatt hours of energy over a period of 20 years.

On an annual basis that would power up about 48,000 homes in the U.S.

Duke Energy (NYSE:DUK) Says Coal Prices will Rise

Duke Energy (NYSE:DUK) said the price of coal will rise over the next 12 months, citing the accident involving Massey Energy’s (NYSE:MEE) Upper Big Branch coal mine as one of the major factors in the increase in coal prices since the middle of April of 10 percent.

Actions from the Environmental Protection Agency are also the culprit in increasing coal prices, as they are demanding stricter regulations for mine water permits, and have proposed revoking a mining permit of Arch Coal (NYSE:ACI) as well, pushing prices higher.

It seems the government may be doing some of this deliberately in order to push its own energy agenda, which will cost far higher than the price of coal and other energy, but can't compete unless existing energy resources move up in price.

Consequently coal prices are expected to continue rising into 2012.