What We Do

What We Do

Project Development

Project Development Support

Sunel provides Full Support (Value Added) Services to his clients during the development stage including:

  • Project feasibility
  • PPA: Negotiation support, scheduling & risk analysis
  • Permitting
  • Site securing
  • Regulatory work
  • Budgeting: Pro­forma analysis, forecasting, cash flows
  • Risk Analysis: Cost benefits, project scheduling
  • Interconnection study: Single Line, plant modeling, feasibility system impact – facility study
  • Site Evaluation: Assessment, flood plains, site topology, geotechnical features, wetlands, interconnection locations.

Development Models

Sunel has a proven track-record of delivering project lifecycle certainty to solar energy developers and investors working in rapidly expanding emerging markets.

Sunel’s team brings unique first-hand experience developing, building and operating projects in Europe, Far East Asia, Sub-Sahara Africa and Latin America where our global footprint extends to over 2GWs of solar projects.

Co-Development

Sunel participates the Early Stage Development of the projects as a co-developer to avoid pitfalls that can jeopardise project success and helps to reduce the gap between project development activities and financial closing through practical deployment mechanisms.

Once a viable business case has been approved with the developer, Sunel is available to enter into numerous Co-Development models. These models are set up to offset costs in a project by aligning project objectives through Sunel having a financial interest in the project.

Benefits of having Sunel as Co-Developer:

  • Aligned Interests - Sunel shares risk with the Client in project success
  • Improved ROI on Development Funds - Reduced fees in exchange for success fee (or similar) at financial close results in balance between risk and development cost
  • Reduced Cost - Sunel develops the project from concept to construction eliminating scope gaps and cost overruns
  • Faster - Seamless integration of all development activities by experienced, emerging market developer
  • Investment Grade Development Projects - Sunel has unique understanding of renewable energy projects in emerging markets

Financing

Sunel’s financial know how and sophisticated structuring capabilities has allowed us to develop, acquire and finance mostly utility scale projects even during the global financial meltdown and European sovereign debt crisis.

Exceptional relationships with financial institutions and solar and construction industry leaders solidify our ability to outpace competitor’s returns in the race to realize a solar powered future.

Services typically involved with financing solar projects

The financial and energy generation structures we employ in our projects ensure all stakeholders prosper from them. The scope of work traditionally delivered during the development phase of a solar PV project include, but are not limited, to:

  • Project economics
  • Financial structuring
  • Tax & depreciation
  • Market incentive analysis
  • Financial modeling
  • Due diligence
  • Return analysis

Engineering Procurement & Construction

Sunel has all engineering disciplines in¬house to provide efficient, reliable, and bankable solutions to our customers. Our Engineers work closely with our in-house construction disciplines to provide constructible solutions to meet local conditions and compressed schedules.

In-House Design Capabilities:

  • PV Plant Layout
  • Energy Modeling and Analysis
  • Structural Design for Foundations
  • AC and DC Arc Flash Calculations
  • Load Flow & Reactive Power Studies
  • Module String Calculation
  • PV Source Circuit Calculations
  • PV Output Ampacity Calculations
  • DC Voltage Drop
  • DC and AC Cable Ampacity Using Neher- McGrath
  • Inverter Sizing
  • Inverter Step Up Transformer Sizing
  • Medium Voltage Collection System Design
  • Substation Main Power Transformer Sizing
  • Substation Layout Design
  • Transmission Line (Generation Tie Line) Routing
  • Constructability Reviews

Procurement

Sunel has all procurement disciplines in-house and extensive relations with the industry’s leading suppliers; ensuring access to materials from a variety of sources at mutually agreeable commercial terms and minimal supply risk. Our Procurement Team works closely with our in-house engineering team to provide competitively priced product to comply with the project design solution.

Construction

Sunel has all construction disciplines in-house and we own the latest generation of construction equipment. Our Construction staff works closely with our in-house Project Management and Engineering teams to ensure complete and unfettered compliance with all project permits and technical requirements. As a self-perform constructor, Sunel brings an execution strategy for each project that minimizes risk and maximizes safety, quality, and schedule control.

In-House Construction Capabilities:

  • Safety - Our first construction goal for every project is to be accident free.
  • Quality - Each step in construction has a quality checklist that is completed daily to ensure highest quality and minimize end of project punch lists.
  • Schedule - We structure our construction schedules with buffer in order to ensure project schedule compliance without relying on change orders.

Operations & Maintenance

Asset Management

The viability of solar energy as a trusted power source and the realization of investment goals sit in the hands of the operations, maintenance and asset management team. This specialized suite of on site, technical and software capabilities is critical to the proper performance of the solar facility of its average life span of 25 years.

Sunel’s operations and maintenance (O&M) and asset management capabilities have proven to deliver results with our Sunel owned solar assets and utilities and distributed generation clients in many regions of the world. The focus to provide high quality added value services for operational solar assets has shaped a suite of services delivery on the energy generation promise of the solar revolution.

Our maintenance and solar management credentials include:

  • 24/7 continuous monitoring to ensure optimal performance and the achievement of financial projects
  • Cloud-based solar enterprise resource planning (ERP) integrated software suite proven on solar PV plants worldwide
  • Proven team of sub-contractors developed for responsive incident resolution
  • Extensive reporting capabilities addressing all stakeholder informational needs
  • Operations, Maintenance and Solar Asset Services

Our team delivers a detailed and extensive list of monitoring, O&M and asset management services.  An overview of typical services includes:

Operation

  • Commissioning
  • Monitoring
  • Operations & Maintenance
  • Continuous improvement
  • Incident handling
  • Accounting
  • Budgeting

Management

  • Cash flow management
  • Reporting
  • Corporate housekeeping
  • Insurance
  • Contract management
  • Investing and divesting

Energy Storage Solutions

Energy storage is a natural extension of Sunel’s solar energy engineering and construction capabilities, enabling solar energy plants to store energy for various uses, such as grid stabilization, peak shaving and load shifting.

Sunel is working with our customers to meet energy storage needs. Sunel has the capabilities to build stand-alone energy storage projects, or combine energy storage with solar and wind projects.