Conductor Solar Announces Partnership with DNV
Athens, Ohio: Conductor Solar, an online platform launched this year, is now in the market battling the foe of countless mid-market solar deals: soft costs. In partnership with DNV, the independent energy expert and assurance provider, Conductor Solar now integrates years of R&D on solar industry best practices with DNV’s Solar Resource Compass tool to automatically verify production estimates at the onset of a deal.
Conductor evaluated hundreds of solar projects across the country in 2020, and many were never built due to excessive project costs. According to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), soft costs make up 55% of the costs on commercial solar projects, and a large portion of those soft costs are overhead, profit, and contingency. Conductor estimates over $65k per project can be saved if investors, developers, and engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) firms transacted using a more efficient software platform. The platform has arrived – Conductor Solar – now with standardized and accelerated solar production forecasts from DNV. Conductor Solar delivers a solution to catalyze $395 million in savings per year to end-user customers across the country.
“Conductor sees massive potential in the commercial sector,” states Marc Palmer, CEO, “and with the right tools to cut out soft costs, billions of dollars in new projects will be unlocked each year.”
“By developing analytics to automate the screening of solar energy production forecasts, we’re able to close the gap between development phase assumptions and financing assumptions, ensuring a faster financial close and a more accurate pro forma,” says Jackson Moore, Product Director for Renewable Energy Software at DNV.
Conductor Solar offers solutions for third-party owned projects (power purchase agreements, leases, etc.) nationwide, reducing soft costs in the following critical ways:
Automated, accurate, production estimates with DNV | A solar system is forecast to produce a certain number of kilowatt-hours (kWh) each year, and that production forecast is at the core of the system’s value so accurate estimates are pivotal. With over 2,000 solar EPC firms spread across the country, there’s no standard way those estimates are completed, and hundreds of hours can be wasted on a transaction before gross inaccuracies are uncovered.
Required acknowledgement of industry best practices | Conductor’s experience in solar deal making has allowed them to capture best practices from hundreds of transactions with dozens of counterparties. Developers and EPC firms often have different expectations than investors, and the parties are challenged to align on those in an efficient, consistent manner. Level-setting those expectations accelerates deals from the start and results in fewer speed bumps along the way, saving everyone time and money.
Solar-specific deal rooms | Parties spend dozens of hours today managing their data rooms housed in Dropbox, OneDrive folders, and various other tools. Time gets wasted communicating document needs, tracking what is and isn’t available, and requesting manual status updates over email or with shared Google Sheets. Conductor eliminates those administrative headaches with data rooms focused on the specific needs of commercial solar deals. Each data room has the same look and feel regardless of counterparty while staying flexible enough to accommodate each project’s unique circumstances, and Conductor’s messaging and notification tools reduce time spent on admin, allowing customers to work on more deals.
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About Conductor Solar: Conductor Solar is actively growing the US commercial solar market with innovative software solutions. The company combines extensive solar transactional experience with cutting edge software development to simplify project finance for all parties involved. Visit https://conductor.solar today to simplify your commercial solar deals.
About DNV: DNV is the independent expert in risk management and assurance, operating in more than 100 countries. Through its broad experience and deep expertise DNV advances safety and sustainable performance, sets industry benchmarks, and inspires and invents solutions. DNV provides assurance to the entire energy value chain through its advisory, monitoring, verification, and certification services. As the world’s leading resource of independent energy experts and technical advisors, DNV helps industries and governments navigate the many complex, interrelated transitions taking place globally and regionally in the energy industry. DNV is committed to realizing the goals of the Paris Agreement, and supports customers to transition faster to a deeply decarbonized energy system.
