Dependency
Find the risk that blocks the next commitment.
Not the longest list of open items. The one a capital provider would stop on today.
Guide · Energy project finance
What makes an energy project financeable
An energy project is financeable when its supply, site, technology, revenue, permits, and capital plan hold up to diligence at the same time. This guide lists the questions investors and lenders ask, and what answers them.
The short answer
Every dependency has to hold at once.
Capital providers do not fund a technology or a market. They fund a project whose supply, site, technology, revenue, permits, and capital plan can each survive diligence, and whose agreements line up so one does not undo another.
Most projects that stall have one open dependency, not six. Finding that dependency, and the evidence that would close it, is the work between a good idea and final investment decision.
The questions investors ask before they commit.
Founders often meet these questions for the first time in diligence, where a weak answer costs time or terms. Each one maps to a dependency the project has to resolve.
- Feedstock and supply
- Will the plant get enough of the right input, at a known cost, for the life of the debt?
- What answers itSupply agreements with volumes, specifications, and price terms, plus a plan for what happens when quality varies.
- Site and interconnection
- Can this site be built on, permitted, and connected on the schedule in the model?
- What answers itSite control, a clear interconnection path, and a permitting plan with dates and owners.
- Technology
- Has this process run at this scale, on this input?
- What answers itOperating data, vendor performance guarantees, and an engineering partner who will stand behind the design.
- Offtake and revenue
- Who buys the output, for how long, and at what price?
- What answers itSigned or advanced offtake agreements and a revenue case that still works if one incentive changes.
- Permits and counterparties
- Who has to say yes, and have they?
- What answers itA map of every approval and agreement, sequenced so each one supports the next.
- Capital sequence
- What does each dollar buy, and which risk is retired before the next raise?
- What answers itA staged capital plan that ties each raise to the milestone it funds, through final investment decision.
Sharon Creek approach
Start with the dependency that blocks the next commitment.
Sharon Creek works with founders, developers, and boards on the order of operations: which risk to retire first, what evidence retires it, and who has to sign.
Discuss capital strategyMilestone
Define the evidence that retires it.
A signed agreement, a permit, test data on the real input, or a committed counterparty.
Counterparties
Line up who has to sign, in order.
Sequence suppliers, buyers, utilities, regulators, and capital so each agreement supports the next.
Founder proof
How St. Bernard got financed.
Sam Schutte, Sharon Creek's founder, was CEO and co-founder of Synthica Energy. He raised the money to build the St. Bernard organics-to-energy facility with utility-backed project financing. After the project reached final investment decision, he and his partners raised a further equity commitment from Goldman Sachs Asset Management's infrastructure business.
Read the St. Bernard story- $80M1
- Raised to build St. Bernard with utility-backed project financing
- $450M2
- Further equity commitment raised after final investment decision
1Project cost as reported by RETTEW, the facility’s lead design engineer: RETTEW, “St. Bernard Organics-to-Energy Facility”
2Synthica Energy announced the equity investment from the Infrastructure Business within Goldman Sachs Asset Management in August 2023; financial terms were not disclosed in that announcement: Synthica Energy announcement. For context, RETTEW describes St. Bernard as the foundation for Synthica’s broader $400 million portfolio of facilities, representing more than $1 billion in future investment: RETTEW project page.
St. Bernard is Sam Schutte's prior work at Synthica Energy. Sharon Creek Ventures is a separate, independent firm.
Go deeper by sector.
- JournalWhat makes a difficult energy project buildableA framework for aligning the workstreams that decide whether a project can advance.Read the article
- JournalWhat makes a waste-to-fuel project financeable?Feedstock, logistics, conversion, offtake, site economics, and capital, anchored to the St. Bernard project.Read the article
- JournalWhich risk keeps a grid-scale storage project from becoming financeable?Site, interconnection, operating strategy, revenue, equipment, and capital schedule as one case.Read the article
Direct answers
Financeability questions, answered.
- What does financeable mean for an energy project?
- It means capital providers can price the project's remaining risks and will commit on terms the project can carry. In practice that takes credible answers on supply, site, technology, revenue, permits, and the capital plan.
- What is final investment decision (FID)?
- Final investment decision is the point where owners and capital providers commit the money to build. Before FID, a project raises smaller amounts of development capital to retire the risks that would otherwise block that commitment.
- What usually stops an energy project from reaching FID?
- Usually one open dependency rather than many: an unsigned offtake agreement, an unclear interconnection path, technology that has not run at scale on the real input, or supply with no contract behind it.
- How does Sharon Creek help a project become financeable?
- Sharon Creek advises founders, developers, and boards on capital strategy: finding the dependency that blocks the next commitment, defining the evidence that retires it, and sequencing counterparties and capital through FID. Advisory work is scoped per engagement.
Bring the question that is stalling your raise.
Describe the dependency that is still open and the capital commitment it is holding up. Or email info@sharoncreek.com.
Discuss capital strategy