According to Simon Mitchell, commercial director of YLEM Energy’s commercial & industrial distributed solar business Power-Zero, the developer is in the final stages of negotiating contracts that will contribute to the company delivering around 30 MW of solar projects to about 10 clients over the next 12 months.

This includes a potential large multi-site contract, under which Power Zero would deliver solar to 15-plus sites.

“[We’re] looking to get those contracts done and dusted over the next couple of months, and then we’ll go straight to the build phase,” Mitchell said in a recent interview with NPM.

Meanwhile, several megawatts of projects that will help make up the total 30 MW are under letters of intent or exclusivity.

Further projects in the Power-Zero portfolio include 7 MW representing seven projects that are either in operation or in late-stage construction. These were delivered for five organisations including Denby Pottery (2.1 MWp ground-mount), Brown-Forman (620 kWp roof-mount), and Coster Aerosols (1.23 MWp roof-mount).

“We’re very much focussed on large, blue-chip customers,” said Mitchell.

Under its strategy, Power-Zero develops, owns, and operates and maintains solar projects from which companies can secure renewable energy supply. It develops projects of more than 700 kW, typically more than 1 MW, that can be installed on rooftops or ground-mounted.

The developer also has private-wire projects within its currently more than 100 MW pipeline. Power-Zero expects the total pipeline will be delivered over the next two years.

Mitchell did not disclose the typical capex cost for projects, but noted that Power-Zero self-finances and is not reliant on any external funding.

“Any projects we get to the final contractual stage, already has the finance ready and there to be deployed,” said Mitchell.

He added: “YLEM Energy is a group that is doing numerous projects of a lot larger sizes – the front of batteries are a lot larger than what we’re doing for the PPA [projects] – so actually these are actually fairly bite-sized for us so we have no issues with actually doing the financing ourselves.”

Power-Zero’s customers secure power from these projects under PPAs, generally ranging between 15 and 25 years in length.

“A good sized roof project, a customer can be expecting to pay potentially anywhere in the region [of] 8–10p per kWh…you can compare that to market rates which are nearer 20p per kWh,” said Mitchell.

He added that for ground-mounted projects the price would be slightly higher.

Goals for 2030

Mitchell said that as 2030 approaches, demand for behind-the-meter projects is increasing as companies work to align themselves with net zero goals.

He added that Power-Zero is seeing most opportunity from large scale manufacturing businesses, such as in food and drinks and in packaging, and particularly companies within supply chains.

“They’re generally dealing with companies who also have net-zero plans, and then starting to look at their scope 1, 2, and 3 [emissions]…so there’s pressure from their ultimate customer for all of their suppliers to also get net-zero,” said Mitchell.

He added that installing solar is a quick and easy win for companies working to align themselves with net zero.

“We’re seeing a lot more tenders produced and released, certainly over the last 12 months, and they’re generally very large tenders from the large companies based in the UK, and potentially around Europe as well,” Mitchell said.

Potentially capitalising on increasing demand, Mitchell said that Power-Zero aims to become one of the UK’s largest solar PPA providers in the UK.

He said: “Once we’ve got the 100 MW-plus pipeline built out…we will be in a very strong position in the UK and one of the largest providers of solar PPA’s with the aim to continue to build and grow on this over the next two or three years.”

The developer may also move abroad, which would be a natural progression for the business, as it already has internationally based customers.

*This story was originally published exclusively for NPM Europe subscribers.