Advanced Financial Modeling for Renewable Energy (US Market)

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Advanced Financial Modeling for Renewable Energy (Tax Equity) — Course Objective

This course trains you to build and analyze U.S. wind and solar project-finance models with a tax equity focus. You’ll develop the skills to structure and evaluate partnership flips, sale-leasebacks, and pass-through (inverted) leases; size debt alongside tax equity; and measure after-tax returns for both the sponsor and the tax equity investor.

Working in an online, hands-on format, you’ll go from a blank Excel workbook to a fully linked model suitable for investment decisions, tax equity term-sheet negotiations, debt structuring, and operational scenario analysis. Step by step, you’ll implement ITC/PTC mechanics, MACRS (incl. bonus depreciation), capital accounts and §704(b)/§704(c) allocations, HLBV waterfalls, DROs, target yield/flip calculations, and book-vs-tax timing differences—so you can translate policy into cash flows and investor returns with confidence.

By the end of the course, you will be able to build realistic, bankable tax-equity models for wind and solar that: (i) size tax equity and debt coherently within the capital stack, (ii) forecast sponsor and tax-equity after-tax cash flows and IRRs, (iii) pinpoint flip dates under different ITC/PTC and production scenarios, and (iv) test sensitivities such as basis step-ups, bonus-depr elections, credit pricing/transferability assumptions, energy curtailment, and refinancing.

• How to model the allocations of tax benefits between tax equity and sponsor, including the capital accounts, DRO, Qualifies Income Offset, and outside basis;
• How to size tax equity investment in a yield-based flip;
• Optimize the model to achieve the requirements of lender, sponsor and tax equity investor;
• How to size debt based on multiple covenants for wind and solar projects;
• How to create best practice macro’s and Excel VBA codes to break circularities;
• How renewable projects are financed;
• Gain insights into the financial model development process, step-by-step – for a renewable energy model;
  
  
  

How Does It Work?

The course runs over fifteen hours and is structured in twenty-one sections with more than one hundred individual classes. You will progress step by step from fundamentals of renewable project finance to a complete, investment-grade model for U.S. wind and solar projects that incorporates tax equity financing, back-leverage, and sponsor buyouts.

First, we begin with the foundations: an introduction to the course, a refresher on key spreadsheet techniques, and an overview of how wind and solar projects are financed. This gives you the full context of project finance, including contracts, risks, and cash flow structure.

Second, you learn how to model renewable energy policy incentives, starting with investment and production tax credits. We then build the tax equity partnership flip, allocations, and back-leverage. These lessons cover construction funding, capital accounts, deficit restoration obligations, qualified income offsets, and outside basis, so you understand how allocations and limitations affect cash distributions and after-tax returns.

Third, we advance into tax equity investment sizing, debt service coverage tests, and reserve accounts. You will model sponsor internal rate of return, global optimization of debt and tax equity sizing, and stress cases such as very low production (the “P99 case”). We also include a systematic review of all calculations and demonstrate how to use the scenario manager to compare structures.

Fourth, you complete advanced features: modeling a sponsor buyout option, running a hypothetical liquidation at book value for accounting, and ensuring the model meets both investor and lender requirements.

What is New Under the Inflation Reduction Act

This course also incorporates the most important market changes from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA):

• Transferability of tax credits: Model a sale of the investment or production tax credit to an unrelated buyer, including pricing and transaction costs, and compare this to traditional tax equity.
• Elective payment (direct pay): Understand which entities qualify for direct payment from the U.S. Treasury and how this affects financing strategy.
• Bonus credits: Include domestic content, energy community, and low-income community bonuses, and model how wage and apprenticeship requirements affect total credit value.
• Stand-alone energy storage: Extend the investment tax credit to storage-only projects or combined solar-plus-storage.
• Small project interconnection credit: Model the treatment of interconnection costs for small facilities and its effect on project economics.
• Technology-neutral credits: Prepare for the transition to new clean electricity credits beginning in 2025, replacing the technology-specific wind and solar credits.
  
  
  
  

Frequently Asked Questions

What is included in the course?

The course is based on the wind and solar case study.

Video content length over 15 hours.

You’ll also get personalized, one-on-one support from me, so you can get your questions answered every step of the way.

Are there Excel files inside the course that I can download and practice with?

Absolutely. Each financial modeling video has "before" and "after" excel files so you can practice what you have learnt from the video lessons. And, final lesson has final project finance model.

Do you have a refund policy?

Yes! If you don’t feel like you’re mastering project finance modeling and analysis in the first 14 days of your enrollment, just email me and let me know. I’ll give you a full refund - no questions asked.

Your course is priced extremely low compared to toher project finance courses - what's the catch?

No catch here. My objective is to get my courses out to as many students that needed them as possible, which results in lower pricing as a starting point. Right now, I’m able to answer questions thoroughly at this price point. However, as enrollments continue to grow, I will probably need to increase enrollment price to reduce the number of students enrolling every month so I can continue to provide the level of personal attention I want to for everyone who decides to enroll in the course.

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