A Developer’s Guide to LandGate's Solar Economic Report Data
- Craig Kaiser
- 1 hour ago
- 10 min read
For solar developers, investors, and asset managers, confirming that a site has strong irradiance and clean land characteristics is only the beginning. The harder question is whether the project will actually pencil out: what it costs to build, what it earns across decades of operation, and what all of that is worth in today’s dollars. That question sits at the heart of LandGate’s Solar Economic Report, which models the full economic profile of a solar asset or portfolio, from capital expense through a lifetime of forecasted revenue, and distills it into a present-day net asset value.
This post walks through each section of a Solar Economic Report, explaining what data is provided and why it matters for anyone evaluating whether a solar project is worth building, buying, or holding. The figures cited throughout come from the attached sample report, a single 120.37 MWdc (100.31 MWac) planned solar farm in Pennsylvania, operating in the PJM market.
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Starting Point: Portfolio Details
The report opens by establishing the scope of the analysis: how many solar farms are included, their combined nameplate capacity expressed in both direct current (MWdc) and alternating current (MWac), and how that capacity is distributed across regions and states. In the sample, the portfolio holds a single planned project totaling 120.37 MWdc and 100.31 MWac, located entirely in Pennsylvania and within the PJM grid operator footprint.
These framing details matter because solar economics are deeply regional. The energy market a project sells into, the state incentive regime it qualifies for, and the development stage it has reached all shape every downstream number in the report. A planned project carries different risk and timing assumptions than an operating one, and a PJM asset earns under different pricing dynamics than one in, for example, ERCOT or CAISO. By anchoring the analysis to a defined market, state, and development status up front, the report ensures the economics that follow are grounded in the conditions the project will actually face.
The Portfolio Details section also includes a map of the parcel footprint overlaid with nearby transmission lines, color coded by voltage class, along with surrounding solar projects by status. This gives an immediate visual read on the project’s grid proximity, which is a first-order driver of interconnection cost.
The Solar Farms Inventory
Following the portfolio overview, the report lists each solar farm individually with its core identifying attributes: state, development category, MWdc and MWac capacity, production start date, energy market, and energy pricing type. The sample project is categorized as Planned-1, with a production start date of January 7, 2030, selling into PJM under locational marginal pricing (LMP).
This inventory is the bridge between the portfolio-level summary and the detailed economic analysis. The development category in particular (Planned-1, in this case) is not just a label. It maps directly to a risk factor and discount rate that LandGate applies when valuing the project’s future cash flows, which is where the report turns from description into valuation.
Executive Summary: Risk-Adjusted Economics and Net Asset Value
This is the analytical core of the report. It answers the question every developer and investor ultimately needs answered: what is this asset worth today, and how confident can we be in that figure?
The Executive Summary organizes results by risk category. Each development category, from Operating through Construction, Development, Planned, Queued, and Site Control, carries a corresponding risk factor and a suggested discount rate that LandGate recommends applying to future cash flow projections. The further a project sits from commercial operation, the more discounting its projected cash flows warrant. For the sample Planned-1 project, the report presents several headline metrics worth understanding individually.
Levelized Cost of Energy and Price Margin
The report shows a levelized cost of energy (LCOE) of $22.68/MWh against a levelized energy price of $46.70/MWh, producing a levelized price margin of $24.02/MWh. LCOE captures the all-in cost of generating each megawatt-hour over the project’s life, blending capital and operating costs into a single per-unit figure. The levelized price is what each megawatt-hour is expected to earn. The margin between them is the clearest single indicator of project profitability per unit of output: a positive and wide margin, as here, signals that the project earns comfortably above its cost to produce.
Before-Tax Cash Flow and Present Value at Multiple Discount Rates
The report presents before-tax cash flow (BFIT) at present value across a range of discount rates: PV0 (undiscounted), PV6, PV8, PV10, and PV12. For the sample project these values are:
PV0 (undiscounted): $212.5M, the sum of all projected lifetime cash flows with no time-value adjustment.
PV6: $38.12M
PV8: $13.04M
PV10: -$4.16M
PV12: -$15.99M
Presenting present value at several discount rates is one of the most useful features of the report. It shows exactly how sensitive the project’s value is to the cost of capital. This project is strongly positive at a 6 percent discount rate, roughly breakeven between 8 and 10 percent, and negative at 12 percent. An investor with a low cost of capital sees an attractive asset, while one demanding a 10 to 12 percent return would see the project as marginal or value-destructive at the current price. The crossover point tells you the project’s implied internal rate of return sits somewhere between 8 and 10 percent.
Suggested Discount Rate and Net Asset Value
Rather than leaving the reader to choose among those discount rates, the report applies the rate LandGate considers appropriate for the project’s risk category. For this Planned-1 asset, the suggested rate corresponds to PV6, yielding an estimated net asset value of $38.12M. The report then normalizes that value two ways: a capacity-weighted NAV of $380,062 per MWac and a production-weighted NAV of $4.32 per MWh.
These normalized figures are what make the report genuinely useful for comparison. A raw NAV tells you what one project is worth, but per-MWac and per-MWh values let a developer or acquirer benchmark this asset against others of different sizes, quickly identifying which projects in a pipeline deliver the most value per unit of capacity or generation.
Portfolio Economics By Year
Where the Executive Summary compresses the project into single figures, the Portfolio Economics By Year section unfolds it across time. For each year it lays out capital expense, the generation forecast in MWh, levelized energy and SREC prices, energy and SREC revenue, operating costs, taxes, federal tax credits, before-tax cash flow, and the present value of that cash flow at each discount rate.
Reading down the year-by-year table reveals the economic shape of a solar project in a way no summary can. In the sample, capital expense of $124.35M lands in 2029, the year before production begins, producing a large negative cash flow at the front of the timeline. Generation begins partway through 2030 (114,080 MWh in that first partial year), ramps to a full year of roughly 243,000 MWh in 2031, and then declines gradually each year thereafter, reflecting the steady panel degradation built into the model. Energy prices, meanwhile, escalate over time, from about $34.35/MWh in 2030 toward $36.22/MWh by 2035, partially offsetting that physical decline.
Crucially, the table also separates the modeled years from the project’s long tail. The sample shows a near-term subtotal alongside a much larger “Remaining” block capturing decades of later production, summing to a lifetime total of 8,822,344 MWh, $412.01M in total revenue ($227.01M energy plus $272.25M SRECs), and $75.75M in operating costs. This structure lets a developer see both the cash-intensive early years that drive financing needs and the long revenue tail that drives ultimate value.
Capital Expense by Solar Farm
The capital expense section decomposes the project’s upfront cost into its component line items, which is essential for anyone validating a budget or comparing cost structures across projects. For the sample, the major hard-cost components include:
Panels: $34.91M, the single largest line item.
Structural balance of system: $21.67M for racking and mounting.
Install and equipment: $16.85M.
Electrical balance of system: $10.83M.
Inverters: $3.61M.
Gen-tie: $278,530 to connect the project to the grid.
On top of these, the report itemizes soft and development costs, including interconnection ($4.81M), EPC overhead ($9.63M), developer overhead ($10.83M), and permits and inspection ($2.41M). These build to a total capital expense of $115.83M, to which $8.51M in sales tax is added, producing a net capital expense of $124.35M. The report then expresses that as $1.03M per MWdc and $1.24M per MWac.
Those per-megawatt figures are the most portable output here. They let a developer immediately judge whether a project’s build cost is in line with market norms and benchmark it against other assets without having to reconcile differing line-item conventions.
Operating Expenses by Solar Farm
Capital cost is only half the cost picture. The operating expense section breaks down the ongoing costs of running the asset across its life. For the sample project, total lifetime operating expense of $75.75M splits into:
Equipment maintenance: $33.7M.
Site lease: $24.07M, the cost of the land over the operating term.
Site and land maintenance: $13.48M.
Insurance: $4.33M.
Separating these line items matters because they behave differently. Site lease costs are typically contractual and escalate on a defined schedule, while maintenance and insurance track the physical plant and its risk profile. For an investor underwriting long-term returns, understanding which operating costs are fixed by contract and which are exposed to inflation or condition risk is central to assessing how durable the projected margins really are.
Energy Generation by Solar Farm
This section quantifies how much electricity the project is expected to produce, both annually and across its full operating lifetime, and expresses that output as a capacity factor. The sample project forecasts 8,822,344 MWh over a 40-year operating life, at a lifetime capacity factor of roughly 25 percent.
The capacity factor is the key efficiency metric here. It expresses actual expected output as a percentage of the theoretical maximum if the plant ran at full nameplate capacity every hour. A 25 percent figure is consistent with a fixed-tilt or single-axis solar project in the mid-Atlantic, and it is the variable that most directly translates installed capacity into revenue. Two projects with identical nameplate capacity can have materially different economics if their capacity factors differ, which is why this section underpins every revenue figure elsewhere in the report.
Revenue and Energy Pricing by Solar Farm
The revenue section details where and how the project sells its output. For the sample, the project interconnects at the Cambridge-Lee point of interconnection within PJM, priced at the ONTELAUN node under an LMP structure. It forecasts a levelized energy price of $25.73/MWh and a levelized SREC price of $30.86/MWh, producing $227.01M in energy revenue and $272.25M in SREC revenue for a total of $412.01M.
What stands out here, and what the report makes explicit, is that solar renewable energy credits (SRECs) contribute more revenue than the energy itself in this project. That is characteristic of certain state markets, Pennsylvania among them, where the SREC program is a substantial component of project economics. For a developer, this is a critical risk insight: a project whose value depends heavily on SREC revenue is exposed to the regulatory durability of that credit program in a way that a pure energy-revenue project is not. Surfacing the energy and SREC split, along with the specific pricing node, lets an investor weight that policy risk appropriately.
Portfolio Federal Tax Credits
The final analytical section addresses the federal tax treatment that shapes after-tax returns. It identifies the qualifying year, the eligible cost basis, the chosen incentive program, and the resulting impact on tax liability. The sample project qualifies under the Investment Tax Credit (ITC) program, with a 2029 qualifying year and an ITC qualified basis of $87.87M, and it benefits from accelerated depreciation that reduces tax liability by $30.75M.
Federal incentives frequently make the difference between a project that pencils and one that does not, and the choice between the ITC and the PTC materially changes the cash flow profile. By laying out the qualifying basis, the program selected, and the depreciation benefit, the report lets a developer confirm the incentive assumptions baked into the valuation and test how the economics would shift under different policy outcomes. Given that federal solar incentives have been subject to legislative change, isolating this contribution is essential to understanding how much of the project’s value rests on tax policy.
What This Report Tells You and What It Doesn’t
A LandGate Solar Economic Report is a screening and valuation tool. It uses project parameters, market pricing forecasts, cost models, and standardized risk-adjusted discounting to produce an economic picture that is directionally accurate and immediately useful for go/no-go and acquisition decisions. It is not a substitute for the detailed financial model, independent engineering report, and confirmed offtake terms that a project requires to reach financial close.
Report Section | Decision It Supports |
Portfolio Details | Confirming scope, market, and development stage |
Executive Summary | Establishing risk-adjusted net asset value and per-unit benchmarks |
Portfolio Economics By Year | Understanding financing needs and the timing of cash flows |
Capital and Operating Expense | Validating build and operating budgets against market norms |
Energy Generation | Assessing production assumptions and capacity factor |
Revenue and Energy Pricing | Weighting energy versus incentive revenue and policy risk |
Federal Tax Credits | Confirming incentive assumptions and after-tax return drivers |
What comes after a positive economic screening is detailed diligence, financing, and offtake negotiation. The report’s value is in giving developers and investors enough information to decide quickly whether a project deserves that deeper commitment of time and capital, and to enter those later stages with a realistic, risk-adjusted view of what the asset is worth.
Access Solar Economic Report Data
The gap between a solar site that looks promising and one that delivers a real return is almost always economic, not physical. Capital costs, degradation, market pricing, incentive structures, and the cost of capital interact in ways that are difficult to judge by intuition. LandGate’s Solar Economic Report brings that full analysis forward to the screening stage, giving developers and investors a data-driven picture of cost, revenue, and risk-adjusted value before significant capital is committed. For anyone evaluating multiple candidate projects, it turns economic viability into a screening criterion rather than a late-stage discovery.
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LandGate Solar Economic Reports are based on project parameters, market pricing forecasts, and standardized cost and risk models. Results are directional estimates intended for screening and valuation purposes and should not be used as a substitute for a project’s detailed financial model, independent engineering review, or confirmed offtake and financing terms. Actual costs, generation, revenue, and asset value may differ from report findings.
