The decision to own generation or contract for it is a treasury question, not an engineering one. Each structure carries a distinct profile of cash flow, balance-sheet treatment, tax position, and performance risk. We model all viable paths so the choice is made on financial merit.
Power purchase agreements
Under a PPA, a third party owns, installs, and maintains the array on your roof or land, and you purchase the electricity it generates at a contracted rate, typically 10 to 30 percent below the prevailing grid price. There is no upfront capital, the asset sits off your balance sheet under most accounting treatments, and generation risk transfers entirely to the asset owner.
Contracted rates are either fixed for the term or escalated against a defined index, commonly 1.5 to 2.5 percent annually, which still tracks well below historical grid inflation.
Ownership and asset finance
Direct ownership captures the full economic value of the asset, including accelerated depreciation, renewable energy certificates (RECs), and the residual generation after debt is retired. With unlevered project IRRs typically landing between 8 and 14 percent, ownership outperforms a PPA over the asset's 25-year life for entities with capital availability and tax appetite.
- Power purchase agreement origination and rate negotiation
- Operating and capital lease structuring
- Asset-backed debt and green-loan facilitation
- REC and certificate monetization strategy
- Depreciation, tax, and balance-sheet treatment modeling
Certificate and incentive monetization
Renewable energy certificates represent a separable revenue stream from the electricity itself. We advise on whether to surrender certificates against corporate carbon claims or monetize them in compliance and voluntary markets, where pricing can materially shift project economics and shorten payback by one to three years.
Every structure is stress-tested against your weighted average cost of capital, sensitivity-analyzed for tariff and generation variance, and presented as a discounted cash-flow comparison. The objective is a financing decision that survives audit scrutiny, not a sales pitch dressed as analysis.