Wholesale and retail electric industry restructuring paved the way for competition and innovation in renewable energy procurement, spanning policy-driven competitive procurements, standard offers and purchase tariffs, bilateral and voluntary initiatives. Since the inception of competitive electricity markets, Sustainable Energy Advantage played a foundational role in developing much of the landscape now used for clean energy procurement, and continues to be at the forefront as these structures continuously evolve, particularly in the Northeast, but also ranging across the US and internationally.
As advisors to policymakers, stage agencies and market participants on the buy- and sell-side, SEA has the perspective and expertise to support the full range of renewable energy procurement activities.
Our supply procurement and transaction support services fall into three broad categories:
- Studies and Evaluation: Typically for public sector clients as well as NGOs, SEA has:
- Conducted international best-practices studies of clean energy procurement approaches, advising nations or state agencies on how to achieve their objectives
- Assessed procurement options and their implications to help states define and select paths to procurement of thousands of MW of large-scale and distributed clean energy generation capacity, including published and internal studies and stakeholder group support
- Outlined viable detailed implementable approaches which robustly address the needs of all impacted stakeholders to enable buyers to move from objectives to execution. Past and ongoing examples include New York’s central procurement model, large-scale renewables and offshore wind procurement approaches; DER standard offer/tariff studies from California to Massachusetts and Rhode Island; and today, examining the potential for central market-based procurement through a Forward Clean Energy Market
- Buy-side support: For public-sector, utility, compliance, aggregation and voluntary buyers, SEA has:
- Developed procurement strategies and approaches
- Evaluated transaction models: physical PPAs, financial (i.e., virtual or synthetic) PPAs
- Crafted or provided material input to solicitations used to procure thousands of MW of wind, solar, hydroelectric, biomass and/or fuel cell resources
- Developed evaluation criteria and procurement evaluation tools
- Conducted counterparty identification and screening and negotiation support (recent examples include supporting a utility and an aggregation of end users seeking to buy offshore wind)
- Evaluated and score proposals and conducted buyer due-diligence
- Modeled the effectiveness of hedging transactions considering product definition, temporal and locational basis risk
- Developed strategies and supported procurement and negotiation for voluntary renewable energy purchasing (i.e., corporate, institutional, and governmental purchases above and beyond policy mandates)
- Sell-Side Support: For clean energy developers, owners, operators and investors, SEA has:
- Provided procurement bid strategy support for large scale renewables, offshore wind, hybrid transmission/clean energy supply, hybrid renewables/storage
- Supported bid development including from developing strategy, crafting compelling narratives, managing drafting teams, proposal ghost writing, modeling and mocking competitive evaluation, and developing supporting research and analysis
- Performed comprehensive analysis of non-conventional offtake opportunities and identification of potential counterparties to support origination functions
SEA’s supply procurement and transactional support services help renewable energy buyers and sellers identify opportunities, utilize market research and analysis to optimize transaction structures and terms, and execute replicable and beneficial agreements, enabling project financing and buyers securing supply meeting clean energy objectives cost-effectively.
