Technical & Economic
Solar & Battery Storage Design and Feasibility
Solar net metering and battery storage implementation requires an assessment of your energy or storage needs before designing and assessing electrical interconnection requirements. This assessment starts with understanding your current or proposed energy usage, via billing or consumption data. For solar projects this is then used in conjunction with roof or ground site restrictions to determine the maximum size that makes sense for your building or business.
Net Metering regulations are meant to encourage energy production to offset annual energy consumption, therefore any energy production over annual needs is typically given up ( for free!) to the utility. See how Net Metering works? Therefore understanding your total consumption and potential energy production is an important part of your overall feasibility assessment.
For battery storage and solar net metering projects, building electrical infrastructure like main service sizing, switchgear sizing and voltage will have an impact on any necessary upgrades to facilitate a net metered solar or battery storage project.
Another important step in overall solar net metering or battery storage feasibility is being able to connect the system to the electrical grid. Even though these projects are connected “behind the meter”, meaning they serve your needs before sending power out to the grid, by virtue of connecting to your building which is fed by the grid, these systems also connect to the grid and have to be screened by your local utility.
Our team of engineers has submitted hundreds of interconnection requests and Connection Impact Assessments to determine local grid capacity.
Project Economics
Renewable and clean energy project economics are based on a variety of factors including capital and operating costs, savings generated through self generation or selling your power to the grid, how much power you are going to generate, how power rates are expected to change in the future and your ability to take advantage of tax and other incentives.
Currently, solar net metering projects can achieve investment returns (i.e. internal rate of return) that range from 15 to 20% or about a 6 to 8 year payback in most of Canada. Battery storage systems can have paybacks that are less than 4 years for power users or be the lowest cost option for utilities, depending on the alternatives.
Our experts can help you combine the technical feasibility of your solar net metering or battery energy storage project and combine them with financial analysis to determine your customized project returns and paybacks.
Economic Impact Assessment
Investments in renewable and clean energy create economic impacts including investment, tax revenue and local employment during the design, construction and operations phases. Compass has worked with the Canadian Solar Industries Association, the Canadian Wind Energy Association (See here) and the Ministry of Energy (See here) to calculate these local economic impacts associated with engineering, design, construction and operations that include tax revenue, payments to local landowners and indirect spending created by this economic activity.
If you are proposing a renewable or clean energy project or want to determine what the local economic impacts from a renewable or clean energy project Compass can help you quantify them localized for your province, state or region.
Project Due Diligence & Valuation
Buying or selling renewable or clean energy projects require that a significant amount of due diligence is completed. Either buyer or seller want to ensure that all of the important project agreements and details are documented and well understood including:
- Power Purchase Agreement
- Contractual obligations
- Interconnection Agreement
- Land Lease
- Environmental Approvals
The quality and state of these documents will impact the risk profile of the project and its ultimate purchase price. The team at Compass has significant experience in completing due diligence on the buy side, and has supported a number of participants on the sell side as well. We can help you ensure you are maximizing your project value by making the sale due diligence painless.
Further our team has conducted renewable energy project valuation for over 10 years, across technologies including wind, solar, hydro power and battery storage. We can support you in developing a financial model that can calculate your projects returns, but also its value to a buyer with alternate cost structure.
Policy & Regulatory Development
The policy and regulatory environment are what establishes the framework for the investment in renewable and clean energy. Understanding the current policy and regulatory environment as well as how changes would impact your business or sector are key to determine to what extent you should be engaged in future policy development.
Our managing partners have worked in the public sector for over 30 years and have first hand experience in developing policy that impacts generators and customers. Leveraging this experience, Compass Energy Consulting regularly works with associations, renewable generators and power consumers to provide input on government policy development including industrial rate design, virtual net metering requirements, land use restrictions on ground mounted solar net metering projects.