Non-equity finance

To contribute to the capital cost of large scale solar projects debt finance is provided alongside the owners' or developers' equity

Finance providers / facilitators for utility-scale solar projects

This table shows the leading finance providers idenified for project on the Wiki-Solar Database. This includes organisations which support the provision of finance for example by guaranteeing loans or by facilitating carbon trading.

The role of the finance providers

Most owners choose to share the total capital investment in solar power projects by seeking some debt or bond finance alongside the equity, which they contribute. Developers may also make a similar decision at earlier stages of the project.

This non equity finance may be provided by banks or other financial institutions, which we refer to as finance providers.

The finance providers may be compensated either with interest, or with a share of the revenue. Either way they will want to satisfy themselves about the capabilities of the EPC and O&M contractors selected and the quality of key components, such as solar modules and inverters.

Basis of the data used

The data used for the analysis and the table on the left is derived from operating projects of 4MW_AC+ on the Wiki-Solar Database, according to these criteria.

Finance providers and facilitators are known for some, but not all, of the projects on Wiki-Solar's database. Therefore, as noted below the table some figures will be under-stated. However, several of the leading participants confirm details of their portfolio to Wiki-Solar (and you can too - see the left of this page).

Some finance providers listed also provide equity, so may be listed as owners of some in utility-scale projects. Any figures quoted here apply only to their non-equity provision of debt or bond finance. Where companies have maps, however, these will show all their projects.