Last week, we reported on a online platform that will bring solar installers and potential customers together, now we’ve learned about a platform focused on the commercial side of the industry.
Both platforms are designed to make the solar market more efficient and to bring down costs.
SCS Renewables is launching an online brokerage platform that brings project investors and banks together with solar developers that need project financing – a global hub for solar project funding.
An answer to the industry’s highly fragmented and inefficient market, the platform is designed to increase the sectors’ dismal closure rates and expand the pool of capital available to finance commercial and utility scale solar projects, says SCS Renewables.
Transitioning out of stealth mode, the SCS brokering and scoring platform currently has available funding sources in excess of $2 billion via its current finance partners, as well as 298 megawatts of solar projects actively seeking finance through its network of project development companies.
"In the PV industry the ultimate customer is the bank." says Haresh Patel, SCS Renewables CEO. "Project development processes lack standards and are currently decoupled from the investor’s criteria, which results in huge inefficiencies, adds variable cost to solar projects, and slows overall market growth. The SCS finance platform solves these problems and promises savings over time of $0.10-$0.30/watt due to lower
transaction costs and improved market efficiencies."
The platform enables high quality deals for financial institutions while providing financial certainty for project developers. By using the platform’s streamlined process, standard documentation and project scoring methodology, it directly tackles the lack of standards and stubbornly high transaction costs currently hindering project viability.
"SCS’ ability to asses and rate projects makes them the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval for renewable energy projects. The service they offer through their platform is a key prerequisite for the financial industry for syndication and securitization. Tools like this will help accelerate deployment of capital and attract new players," says Jigar Shah, advisor to the company and former CEO and founder of SunEdison.
Cost savings will be achieved by increasing the number of quality projects available while decreasing time wasted evaluating unattractive projects. By adding transparency and standards to the process, the platform opens the door to new investor types and new capital markets, reducing the cost of capital via increased competition.
The goal is to further drive industry scale and momentum towards grid parity.
Since 2007, SCS Renewables has brokered over $150 Million worth of solar project investments and partner transactions.
Here’s the website:
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