Training on economic and financial assessment of SHIP plants

How to assess the profitability of a SHIP plant? To answer this question a two-days training was successfully carried out in São Paulo mid-April. Three trainers engaged by the German Agency RENAC, Martin Schnauss, Carl Bohny und Luciano Pereira, instructed representatives from development banks and solar thermal industry in feasibility studies and performance analysis of SHIP systems. The workshop was jointly organised by the Solar Payback partners: the German-Brazilian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI) and the national solar thermal industry association ABRASOL.

„The workshop´s participants had diverse backgrounds in banking, financial services and engineering. This gave ground for a fruitful exchange between the different parties,“ summarizes Kathrin Greilmeier, Coordinator of the financial training in Brazil. Simultaneous translation between English and Portuguese was available. The face-to-face training in São Paulo followed an online training course that was offered by RENAC as well, with a general introduction to solar thermal and particularly solar process heat technologies and applications. The participants appreciated this familiarization phase.

During the face-to-face training the first day was reserved for a Q & A session on the online course on SHIP technologies and applications followed by a block on the political and market frame conditions for SHIP in Brazil. Then business and financing models of SHIP projects were explained with a special focus on heat supply contracts.

The second day focused on the calculation of feasibility studies with an Excel tool that is currently developed by Solar Payback partners and that should be available online in June this year. Case studies of potential SHIP plants were calculated and the resulting key performance indicators (KPIs) where introduced and analysed. These were Equity IRR, Project IRR, LCOH, NPV, Discounted Payback and Simple Payback.

“The knowledge of all three trainers was deep and their didactic and presentations very clear”, appreciates Rafael Campos, President of ABRASOL. “For coming events, we can work together to adapt the material and case studies partially to the Brazilian solar thermal reality, where most larger systems are non-pressurised with much lower investment costs for the storage tanks and other components than pressurised systems”.

Organisations involved in the financial training:
https://www.renac.de/
http://www.abrasol.org.br/
http://ahkbusiness.de/pt/