How the indicative screen works

Documentation of the current engine, not a new calculation

The app produces an indicative annual screen from location, technology and commercial assumptions. The calculation implementation is in the app’s finance engine; this page does not change or reinterpret that engine.

Inputs and resource states

Solar ?solarOutput

PVOUT in kWh/kWp/year, retrieved from EU PVGIS where available or entered manually.

Wind

Capacity factor from NASA POWER mean wind speed and a generic onshore curve, or a manual value.

Commercial

Capacity, CAPEX, development and grid costs, OPEX, tariff, PPA term, inflation and degradation.

Debt and tax

Gearing, tenor, interest, fees, DSRA months, debt profile, target DSCR, tax rate and depreciation years.

A resource lookup has distinct loading, retrieved and failure states in the calculator. A manual override should retain its provenance. An illustrative default is not site-specific data. The current app’s API uses PVGIS API v5.2 with a 14% loss parameter for solar and NASA POWER climatology parameters WS50M and WS10M for wind.

Annual operating calculations

For solar, base annual energy is PVOUT × capacity (MW) × 1,000. For wind, base annual energy is capacity (MW) × 8,760 hours × capacity factor × 1,000. Each operating year applies degradation to energy and inflation to tariff and OPEX. Revenue is energy × tariff; OPEX is the entered annual OPEX per kW multiplied by capacity in kW; EBITDA is revenue less OPEX.

Depreciation is straight-line construction CAPEX over the entered depreciation period. Taxable income is the greater of zero and EBITDA less depreciation and interest. Taxes are taxable income × tax rate, and cash available for debt service (CFADS) is EBITDA less taxes. Working capital is not a separate input in the current engine.

Definitions: ?tariff ?CAPEX ?OPEX ?cash flow

Sources, uses and debt service

Construction CAPEX, development costs and grid costs form total project cost. Debt is sized from gearing and includes calculated interest during construction, upfront and commitment fees, and initial DSRA funding. Equity is the balance of total uses less debt.

The straight_line debt profile uses an annuity based on the entered interest rate and tenor. A sculpted profile estimates debt service as CFADS divided by target DSCR. DSCR is CFADS divided by debt service when debt service is positive; the current outputs report the minimum and the arithmetic average of those annual non-null DSCR values.

The engine keeps cash restricted during the first two operating years and when DSCR is below 1.10x, with DSRA drawdown, top-up and release rules in the annual schedule. The displayed DSCR range should not be assumed to represent a lender covenant without an explicit project criterion.

Definitions: ?DSCR ?DSCR range ?debt outstanding

Return measures and timing

Project pre-tax IRR uses annual EBITDA cash flows after initial total uses. Project post-tax IRR uses annual EBITDA less taxes. Equity IRR starts with initial equity and uses annual dividends. Construction years are represented as zero operating cash flows before the PPA years. The IRR solver uses annual periods; a net present value is not an output of the current app even though it is defined in the glossary.

Definitions: ?IRR ?NPV definition only

Exclusions and review questions

• No site-specific engineering, geotechnical, environmental, land, permitting, grid, interconnection, curtailment or construction schedule assessment is represented.
• No measured wind campaign, wake model, turbine availability model or solar layout, tracker, clipping or degradation study is represented.
• No working-capital, reserve, covenant, PPA settlement, merchant-price, refinancing or detailed tax-basis schedule is represented beyond the current inputs.
• Model interpretation, scenario thresholds and any comparison with investment hurdles remain for GIA model-owner review.