Have a development pipeline that needs a kill bar?
Initial scoping calls are complimentary. Engagements range from single-site go/no-go diligence through portfolio-wide pipeline triage. Conflict cleared on engagement, fee from the client only.
Most projects fail before financial close. Most of those failures were visible at DG1: a queue position three years from energization, an off-take market saturated for the next vintage, land control that isn't actually control, an interconnection cluster requiring a network upgrade the project can't fund. We work with developers and capital partners at the origination phase, where the cheapest decision is the kill decision and the most expensive one is dragging a doomed site through a year of diligence before admitting it.
Pipeline volume without filter is a cost, not an asset.
Every site in the pipeline carries land payments, option fees, and overhead. Pipelines that don't kill bad sites quickly become balance sheet liabilities, not strategic assets.
Brokers sell sites with the cleanest data first.
The first sites a broker brings are the ones that screen well on a single dimension. The data quality on the second and third tier is unknown, and the diligence to verify it is on the developer.
Paralysis between desktop and field kills more deals than bad sites do.
A site that takes six months to decide on is a site competitors are already developing. Diligence has to be fast enough to keep up with the market and rigorous enough to defend the kill decision.
A pipeline concentrated in one ISO is one regulatory change from worthless.
Concentration in one tariff regime, one off-take market, or one interconnection authority makes the pipeline correlated to a single point of failure. The diversification has to be deliberate, not residual.
State RPS, ITC eligibility, REC market clearing, off-take pricing trajectory, capacity market structure. The macro file that determines whether any project in this market is buildable, before any site is screened.
GIS-based screening on slope, environmental flags, land use, transmission proximity. Desktop work that ranks sites quickly and kills the obvious failures before any field cost is spent.
Cluster studies, queue position, network upgrade exposure, IA timing. The single most common failure point in early-stage development. Most pipelines have at least one site here that should be killed.
PPA market depth, merchant exposure, tolling structures, hybrid arrangements. The pricing, tenor, and counterparty diligence that determines whether the pro forma top line is bankable or hopeful.
Fee simple, lease, option, easement. Chain-of-title diligence. The control structure that determines whether the project is actually yours to develop or whether you have a handshake to be invalidated later.
Conditional use permits, environmental review, federal review where applicable (BLM, USFWS, FAA), state and local approvals. Timeline mapped to construction start, with critical path identified.
Capital cost, energy yield, off-take price, blended cost of capital. Modeled to a defensible IRR with sensitivities. The kill bar is set before the model runs, not after.
Interconnection queue position more than 36 months from energization, with cluster restudy risk. The energy yield doesn't matter if the project can't get to the grid in time for the off-take vintage.
Test: COD inside off-take counterparty window, with margin.Required network upgrades exceed 25 percent of project capex, or upgrade cost is unfunded under cluster cost-sharing rules. The project is paying to fix the grid for the next developer.
Test: upgrade cost / project capex below sponsor's threshold.PPA market clearing below the pro forma minimum, with no merchant alternative or hedging path. Or counterparty depth is insufficient and the project is forced into a single-bidder negotiation.
Test: market clearing $/MWh above pro forma floor.Lease term shorter than financing tenor plus extensions. Title defect, easement gap, or option that converts late in development. Not actually controlled in the way a lender requires.
Test: control structure passes lender's standard form review.Either a complete development file ready for handoff to DG2, or a documented kill decision with the specific failure point named. No parking lot, no extended desktop study with no outcome. Origination discipline is fundamentally about saying no faster, not yes louder.
Initial scoping calls are complimentary. Engagements range from single-site go/no-go diligence through portfolio-wide pipeline triage. Conflict cleared on engagement, fee from the client only.