Evergreen offers two unique ways to sponsor new solar, both of which are highly impactful: Virtual Power Purchase Agreements (Virtual PPAs) and REC Purchase Agreements (RPAs).
With a Virtual PPA, you help set a floor price for the sale of energy into wholesale energy markets. If energy sells above that floor price, you receive all of the upside. Alternatively, the RPA has a set fixed price for the RECs and will not change over time. In both cases, your contribution stands up new solar that would not have happened otherwise and you receive the environmental credits associated with your sponsorship.
Solar Fields built on the grid instead of on-site or "behind the meter" deliver energy to the grid and sell that energy in the wholesale market. Due to the long term uncertainty of wholesale energy prices, these projects are unable to get financing from investors or banks.
A sponsor adds stability and some certainty making it possible to raise the funds needed to build and maintain the project. Furthermore, Evergreen Sponsors drive demand for new solar. We take your orders and build new Solar Fields to meet that demand. In this way, you aren’t just making additional solar possible, you are causing it.
A REC Purchase Agreement(RPA) is simply a commitment to buy RECs directly from a project at a specific price for a set number of years. RECs are paid for each quarter as they are issued and retired in your company's name as clean energy is delivered. To eliminate your scope 2 emissions entirely, buy 1 REC for every 1 MWh of energy you project you will use. Nothing changes with your utility or your utility bill.
Virtual Power Purchase Agreements (PPA) are widely considered the gold standard in addressing scope 2 emissions and ensuring additionality. As with RPAs, nothing changes with your utility or your utility bill. However, the price paid for each REC is variable as you participate in the sale of clean energy into the wholesale market.
With a Virtual PPA, instead of paying a fixed price for RECs, you take on the risk in wholesale energy markets for the project by guaranteeing a fixed price on the energy itself. With our development partners, we handle building the project and the sale of energy and you simply pay the difference between your contract price and the wholesale energy price. When energy sells above the contract price, you actually make money.
The contract price can vary based on the size and length of the contract as well as your company's credit rating and may not be an option for everyone.
A typical Virtual PPA is for 25,000 MWh for 15-20 years making it unaccessible to most buyers. Our offerings can be for as little as 1 MWh and 5 years. We are creating a future where companies of any size can participate. And with broader participation, we can realize a dramatic increase in participation and solar plants being built.
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