Making it pay when the sun shines
- Tuesday, July 25, 2023
- Posted By Pieter DHaen
At SSE Energy Solutions, we’ve long recognised the huge potential solar power offers as a vehicle to save businesses and estate owners money as well as reducing carbon emissions vital to tackling the climate emergency.
For that reason, I’d like to first and foremost applaud the Bee Net Zero Partnership for their ‘Rooftop Revolution’ campaign. The authorities’ commitment to Net Zero aligns perfectly with our own and, together, we enjoy a very productive relationship which we’re keen to develop further.
There remains some scepticism over the cost effectiveness of solar amongst some business and estate owners - something we believe is simply down to a lack of awareness of what companies like SSE can deliver, such as our unique Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs).
More traditional ‘take-or-pay’ PPAs mean that customers end up paying for all the energy the solar assets produce, even if they don’t use it. Imagine if you’re a small business and you want to shut down for a week, but you still get hit with an energy bill. This model put a lot of risk onto small businesses, and we believe that’s wrong.
Our model of a ‘Pay-as-you-use’ PPA gives our customers - both small and large businesses - much greater financial security. With our model, we don’t rely on take-or-pay revenues, because we sell unused energy through our energy trading business, allowing us also to offer our customers a better PPA price.
We offer our customers a fixed price PPA, which is great if long term price certainty is important. But we also have a unique discount-to-market offer, where the PPA price is linked through a progressive discount to the price our customers pay for their electricity. In practise this means that customers will never pay us more than their grid price, with no lower limit but with a built-in ceiling value, no matter how high the electricity price soars.
As standard, we conduct feasibility studies and handle all the planning, design, and installation of solar assets and systems to ensure that what we offer is a complete package which represents literally no risk to our end customers.
For those concerned about the length of a standard PPA - typically around 25 years - our model actually offers added security. We know that many small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) lease their property for, on average, around 10 years as they scale the business and then look to upsize. The good news is that SSE can transfer the PPA to the next tenant, giving organisations peace of mind as their business grows. For estate owners, this long-term security can act as an attractive bonus, allowing them to market their property and spaces on its green credentials and with an assurance over the maximum price any new tenant will pay for part of their energy supply.
The Rooftop Revolution is just one example of the measures Greater Manchester is taking to decarbonise, and we’re delighted to partner with Bee Net Zero on it. We look forward to the second Green Summit to be held in Manchester’s Lowry Theatre on Monday October 2nd (of which we’re proud to be the headline sponsor) as together we continue to work towards a greener future.
By Pieter DHaen, Sector Director at SSE Energy Solutions.
To learn more about PPA's from SSE Energy Solutions, contact the team who can tell you more.
Find out how your Greater Manchester business can join our Rooftop Revolution and make the most of solar