Water Wise Solar: building the capital strategy for floating solar in the West

The challenge

Water Wise Solar puts solar arrays on reservoirs and ponds, conserving water by cutting evaporation and avoiding the cost of land. As a new developer in the asset class, it needed a financing structure investors would underwrite, a financial model that would hold up to scrutiny, and introductions to capital partners and power buyers.

What Alpen did

Alpen stress-tested and rebuilt the project financial model, including the tax credit treatment, debt schedule, reserves, land lease and development fees, and built an investor waterfall. We compared two deal structures and found that transferring the tax credit produced a cleaner waterfall than a tax equity partnership flip.

We then tested the model in conversations with equity investors, lenders, utilities and project finance practitioners, and turned what we heard into an insights report covering return expectations, debt limits, pricing benchmarks and the objections a buyer or lender is likely to raise.