The cliff nobody diarises
Renewables Obligation and Feed-in Tariff support was never permanent, and a large population of assets is now running into the end of it. Support drops away and the asset’s revenue becomes whatever its PPA delivers. The PPA, in many cases, was signed years ago on terms that made sense when the subsidy was carrying the project.
What happens next is predictable. The incumbent offtaker sends a renewal offer three months out. It is fine. Nobody has time to test it. It gets signed.
Why the first offer is rarely the best one
Not because anyone is behaving badly, but because an offer made without competition is priced for the person making it. An offtaker who knows you have no alternative prices accordingly, and an offtaker who knows three others are quoting, prices differently.
Running a process does not mean leaving your incumbent. It frequently ends with the incumbent improving their terms and keeping the asset. What has changed is that you now know what their offer was worth.
The timeline
- Twelve months out. Pull the existing contract and find the notice provisions. Get metered output history together. Establish what the asset actually produces, not what the model said it would.
- Nine months out. Take a defined proposition to market. Technology, capacity, location, connection, volume history, term wanted.
- Six months out. Offers in, compared on the same basis, terms negotiated. Price is one line. Volume tolerance, REGO treatment, embedded benefits, credit and termination are the rest.
- Three months out. Signed, with the transfer arranged. Not starting.
What to look at beyond the headline rate
Post-subsidy assets are where the detail earns its keep. Whether REGOs are bundled or retained. Whether embedded benefits are passed through or absorbed. How curtailment and negative price periods are treated, which matters far more now than it did when the contract was first written. And whether the term suits an asset that may be approaching a repowering decision.
One more thing
If the asset is dispatchable, or storage backed, or simply runs at hours solar cannot reach, that is worth more in a market moving toward hourly matching than it was under annual certificates. Do not accept a flat price for the lot without testing that.