How to model Residential Leasing in SAM?

Hi,

How does one model Residential Leasing in SAM?

Thx,
David

SAM does not have an explicit option for modeling a residential lease.

You could use the fixed monthly charge on the Utility Rate page to represent a monthly lease payment, but that would only be appropriate for a lease period that is the same as the analysis period. A better approach might be to treat the lease payments as an annual fixed O&M cost on the System Costs page. By using the Annual Schedule option, you can assign the annual lease cost only to years in the lease period.

There is not an option for representing a purchase of the system at the end of the lease period. It might be possible to model it as a fixed annual O&M cost in the year following the end of the lease period.

To use the Annual Schedule option for the Fixed Annual O&M Cost, click the Edit button that appears when you click blue and gray button next to the input variable's name.

Can you describe the details of the residential lease structure that you would like to model in SAM?

Best regards,
Paul.

Hi,

Thx for this.

There're several schemes offered by e.g. SolarCity:
1.100% downpayment w/o annual lease escalation
2.Partial downpayment w/o lease annual escalation
3.0% downpayment w/ annual lease escalation (different from electricity escalation)

All these schemes have a certain portion of consumption delivered by the utility (presumably, this is the baseline) according to its own terms (e.g. escalation) with the rest of the consumption provided by leased PV.

Obviously, the lessor is the one benefiting from the incentives: accelerated depreciation, possibly w/ a bonus and CSI/PBI, etc.

There're also RECs that need to be factored in.

Then, there's the issue of providing the lease itself (i.e., between the lessor, say Google, and the developer, say SolarCity) in accordance with the different schemes: reverse flip, etc.

David

Hello Paul,

Since leasing has become overwhelmingly popular in the residential segment (up to 85% of installs in AZ), it would be very helpful to include this financial functionality directly into SAM.

Best regards,
Tom

Hi Tom,

Thanks for the request. Adding a financial model for residential lease arrangements is on our wish list -- we just need to find a funding source for that work.

Best regards,
Paul.