Building a solar power plant (SPP) is a long-term investment in a fast-growing industry characterized by high returns, provided that the key steps of its construction are approached with extreme care. This is where the role of EPC contractors comes in.

EPC stands for Engineering, Procurement & Construction.

EPC companies are responsible for the design, supply of the necessary equipment and construction of the power plant. They are the company responsible for delivering the solar plant in its completed form to you, the asset owner, including its commissioning and commissioning.

Steps in the EPC companies activity

The complexity of the process involved in building a solar power plant can hardly be covered in a few sentences. However, we will introduce you to the basic steps that accompany the activities of EPC companies.

1. Project evaluation – in this stage, the EPC company performs a thorough analysis of the project, including an energy audit as well as an analysis of the productive capacity of the PV plant.

• Energy audit – analyzing the potential of the location (radiation, sunny days per year, soil quality, etc.);
• Simulations – running a simulation that calculates the solar days per year based on historical data for a specific region, what amount of energy could be produced per day, month or year; it is the results of this simulation that allow us to derive the assumptions for our financial model with great accuracy and certainty.
• Equipment selection – after the location analysis, it‘s time to select equipment according to the customer‘s goals, budget and the region‘s production potential.

2. Permitting – obtaining permission from the relevant authorities is an important step before installing solar panels on a specific region and area.
3. Design – design and drawing of the solar power plant with the planned models of solar panels, inverters and modules.
4. Installation – installation of the equipment and construction of the PV power plant ready to go into operation
5. Testing and sampling of plant equipment and performance.
6. Commissioning – the project is commissioned, after which the EPC company can continue the work with maintenance, regular inspections and monitoring of the PV plant‘s performance even after the installation is complete.

EPC Guarantеes

In addition to the manufacturing guarantees of the selected equipment, good EPC companies maintain and guarantee the overall performance of the plant.

These are PR (“Performance Ratio Guarantee“) – a performance ratio that is most often calculated for the first two years of the plant‘s operation. Good PR rates are typically above 95%, with averages hovering around 90%.

Who are our EPC partners

The advantages in xFigureFinance‘s work are precisely our expertise, experience, and partnerships with the different types of participants in the process – EPC and O&M contractors, law firms, ESCO companies, panel and inverter manufacturers, etc.

Selecting the EPC companies we partner with involves a thorough analysis of each company. The criteria on which we select our partners are:

• The history of the company and years of experience;
• Previous projects and success rates;
• The team and its expertise, the technical skills of the key team members;
• Strategic partnerships with companies from industry;
• Partners (suppliers of equipment and technology – panels, modules and inverters);
• Financial situation of the EPC company or the company owning it;
• Reputation and reliability, bankability.

All xFigureFinance EPC partners meet the highest quality and credibility requirements.

Final Words

Building a solar power plant (SPP) is a long-term investment in a fast-growing industry characterized by high returns and passive income, provided that the key steps of its construction are approached with extreme care.

By starting to work with xFigureFinance on an EPC project, the client not only gets a financial model that will secure the necessary funding, but also access to the best EPC companies as their partner.

We know the steps and intricacies of the process, we know which EPC contractors are reliable and bankable, what the guarantees should include and how to structure the best financing for the project.