NREL promotes document standardization for renewable energy industries
Transmission lines, Southern California (source: flickr/ Curtis Gregory Perry, creative commons)
Alexander Richter
29 Aug 2012
The U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory established a website promoting document standardization for renewable energy industries. The website provides a number of standard agreements and contracts that can be of interest to geothermal developers.
Earlier this month the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory published an article making the case for document standardization for the renewable energy industries.
While cutting down cost for delivered energy is important, so NREL, soft cost elements within the renewable energy industries are looke dat as well. “Document standardization could pay some real dividends.” The standardization for documents through the “creation of an industry-wide set of contracts, forms, permits, etc., required during the project development cycle”, could be quite benefitial.”
From an insurer’s perspective, if a project can furnish documentation that is standardized across the industry, then its risk profile could be easier to decipher and compare across other projects in its class. This could help to relieve some of the due diligence in the underwriting process and ultimately contribute to more affordable premiums.
From a financial standpoint, standardization could beget a host of benefits that go beyond direct cost reductions. Firstly, standardized PPAs, leases, interconnection agreements, and other contracts could clarify the project evaluation process for financiers and facilitate their investment. The transaction costs associated with securing financing can be burdensome, and relieving some of this friction in the early stages can have positive impacts throughout the development cycle.”
To promote document standardization in the renewable energy industries, NREL’s Strategic Energy Analysis Center’s RE Project Finance Team has created a webpage to act as a sort of clearinghouse for the forms required in the development process. The collection houses a range of publicly available templates and samples including:
- PPAs
- RFPs
- Interconnection agreements
- Engineering, procurement, and construction contracts
- Operations and maintenance contracts
- Leases.
To access the website use link below. NREL promotes an ongoing dialogue to make readily available resources that could hasten a standardization efforts, and encourages sending in documents.
There are currently several documents listed that could be of interest for geothermal, among them Requests for Proposals, Interconnection Agreements, EPC and O&M contracts, Renewable Energy Leases and Green Leases. There is also a Geothermal Lease Template posted.
