Solar Installer Partnership

Funding Solar Projects

Fully Funded Solar Solution Calculator

About Shawton Energy

Delivering high-quality projects across the UK since 1986.
150+ employees.
We are 50% owned by Lazard Investments, a global investment house and bank, who have the aim to deliver £100m of renewable projects in the next 3 years.
100MW+ of solar projects in development.
Each project is unique, and our aim is to become our customer’s long-term Energy Generation partner of choice.
A full turn-key delivery partner ensuring our customer’s projects are built for our customer’s needs.
Health & Safety a key focus ensuring we deliver the highest quality and safe projects.

Funding

Customer Funded

Where our customer’s want to fund the project themselves then Shawton Energy have a small network of approved installers at pre-agreed rates, operational standards and site performance.

Shawton Energy Funded

If our customers do not want to invest their own capital into a solar project then through a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA), Shawton Energy will fund, design, install, operate and maintain the solution for a period of time – typically between 15 and 25 years. The customer buys the power from the assets at a pre-agreed price which is lower than the grid price, thus saving money and carbon with no upfront cost.

What does a good project look like?

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Engagement Level

We would expect to be engaged with minimum mid management level and ideally at senior level within an organisation. If it’s someone junior in the business we’d need to understand their role in the decision making process

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Size

We will only fund projects on a single site that are over 200kWP in size. Typically this means a customer is spending +£100k per year on electricity

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Multi-site

We will deal with smaller projects if it’s part of a multi-site portfolio such as retail or hotel/leisure. If there is a strategic reason we will consider smaller

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Credit Worthiness

As we are in effect lending the customer capital to fund the project we will only want to work with businesses with good credit history. As part of our early process we will do a credit check on the customer.

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Competitive Situation

We would want to understand their procurement process and are they or will they engage with multi businesses for a quote. If they are already engaged with someone and using us as a comparison tool. We need to understand this as early as possible.

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Commitment

We are very busy with a large customer base and therefore will only work with businesses who are committed to developing this project together. We don’t have time to work with tyre-kickers.

What do we look for in a partner?

We recognise there are solar installers in the UK who have customers that don’t have the capital to invest in projects. At this point, we can support those installers so as not to lose the opportunity. However, as we are investing in the project it is important that the design, install and ongoing operation/maintenance is how our investment committee expects it to out-turn commercially and therefore working with credible installers is vital in a partnership.

Therefore, we would expect any future partner to go through a specific process, as defined over the next few pages, to qualify as the installer to the project we will fund. If, for whatever reason, the installer doesn’t get through the process or decides they don’t want to follow the process then we can still fund the project but instead give you a ‘finders fee’ once the project has closed, and we will install ourselves. Either way there is a commercial opportunity for yourself rather than lose the project due to lack of funding.

Bringing a project to Shawton Energy – Stage 1

Full Design

If you have a project you feel needs funding, and once an NDA is signed, then provide us with a full design of the project and give us the output. For example, a full PV Sol design or similar software. We will also need to understand the company name, site details and how much they are currently paying for their electricity. We will also need a £/kWp cost to procure technology, install and operate and maintain the project – i.e Full turn-key cost.

Initial Price

Once you have provided us with the info, we will input the information into our commercial model and produce a simple one-page document outlining the cost of the electricity, duration of contract, cost and carbon savings throughout the contract for you to give to the client. At this stage, we will assume the customer will need to use all the electricity produced from your design.

Present to client

This one-pager allows you to go back to the client to get initial interest. We are more than happy to support on this initial call with the customer. If there is interest to look at the fully funded route, then at this stage we would go through the Desktop vetting stage of your business.

Supplier approval

At this stage we would set up a call with our Operations Director who would also provide you with a 5 point plan asking for information on your business to become an approved installer for this, and future projects. Assuming you pass this, we’d go through to Stage 2 overleaf.

Bringing a project to Shawton Energy – Stage 2

Investigation Meeting with the Customer

We will need a 60-minute call with the client to go through their needs, our business and also what additional information we need to do a full desktop technical design. We would welcome you on that call.

Desktop Proposal

It is important that we do the desktop design based on the customer’s usage of electricity to minimise export. Our preference is for you to design, to retain principal designer status on the project, but if you have not designed in this way before then we can support you on upskilling you. If you don’t want to be principal designer, then let us know and we can discuss options.

Exclusivity

If the customer wishes to proceed and explore further we would want them to sign a Heads of Terms where we typically have a 12 months exclusivity period to develop the project, in conjunction with yourselves, which includes DNO, site visits etc. This will progress
to an Investment Grade Proposal, which is the final project design. At this stage, we’ll also go into a full vetting process with your business.

Investment Grade Proposal

This final design will be 99% accurate to the final price (dependent on how long they take to make a final decision). We will then discuss legal, contracts etc and go to final negotiations and sign off the project. At this stage, we will also agree the final design and install parameters.

What are our expectations from a partner?

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Transparency

A partner who can be open and honest about the project, the customer, and their capability is important. We will absolutely reciprocate and ensure you are in the loop with customers at all time.

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Quality over Quantity

None of us want to be chasing pipe dreams, and therefore we only want to work on projects and customers who are serious about looking at solar projects as opposed to tyre kickers. A partner who brings volume and converts none is wasting a lot of time for a lot of people.

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Credibility

As we are expecting you to install the project then your capability in terms of technical, health & safety and past performance are important as you represent us and our funders, and we will ultimately own the asset.

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Performance Guarantees

To ensure we are working with credible partners then the ongoing O&M will be with yourself, and we will pre-agree performance levels of the assets and if they fall below those then there are pre-agreed penalties.

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Competitiveness

We expect a competitive install and O&M price from yourself. The price you charge goes into our commercial model, and this will reflect in the p/kWh PPA price. If too high it might not look attractive to the client, and we all lose the business

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Collaboration

Throughout the process from start to finish, we want to work collaboratively with you to deliver high quality, commercially attractive projects to our customers and a return on our investment and a good profit for yourselves. We can only do that if we work collaboratively.

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