In Canada and the United States ,utilities keen on get wind into their portfolios are finding creative ways to free up finance for projects they want to see online .In Europe ,institutional investors and infrastructure funds are stepping up to invest in wind alongside cash laden utilites. Alongside these glimmers of good tidings,government lending entities ,such as the European Investment Bank (EIB),are easing the puse strings on ines of credit for wind project financing . All in all , on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean ,some light appears to be dawning for the owners of wind power projects that are currently at a standstill for lack of financing ,as astute readers of the May 2008 issue of Windpower Monthly can read for themselves . In California ,so often a state which shows America the way forward ,one enterprising utility has taken a radical step to moving wind projects foward to construction .After noting that serveral projects it has been expecting to buy green electricity from were forzen in mid devlopment by the implosion of the banking sector ,it decided to trigger a thaw ; the utility is facilitating a needed construction loan by promising that if all else fails and no final project purchaser turns up ,it will step into the breach . A utility in Canada ,also obliged by law to get wind power onto its system ,is thinking along similar lines to its Californial counterpart .Wind project devlopers which the utility has signed power purchase contracts with are struggling to get the capital ,they need to get the turbines built in tme for legal obligations to be met by the 2013 deadline .The regulated utility is proposing to take an equity stake in the project developers ,again with the aim of providing lenders with the security they need to provide affordable credit to move the projects forward . Every cloud has a silver ining , With interest rates and prfit expectations pushed far lower than for many years , both equity and debt is actually cheaper today than it way a year ago .