This may be exacerbated by the smaller project scale of renewables which lead to disproportionately higher transaction costs and lower gross returns (although the rates of returns may still be well within attractive market standards). This is a complex area for investment and credit committees of banks to assess given that countries have differing support regimes, varying processes and legal standing for other issues such as aw arding grid connections, generation licenses and securing off-take arrangements. Financiers may impose additional costs on generally under-capitalized project developers with limited track records, and have differing risk/return expectations across the stages of the investment continuum (from R&D through to mergers and acquisitions) which may make the various stages more or less attractive commercially.