Project Archetypes & Requirements

Wunder Capital provides the high-potential mid-size commercial solar market with non-recourse loans. With over 500MW of projects funded to date across the US, we've established ourselves as the leader in commercial solar lending. Wunder has funded a wide variety of project types with a range of power offtakers.

Loan Types

Wunder offers both term-only and construction-to-term loans. All of our loans are non-recourse for the entire loan term.

Locations

Wunder is able to lend to any project within the continental United States. For projects in Hawaii, Wunder can offer term-only loans.

Project Sizes

Wunder will lend to projects sized between 100kW and 5MW. If a project consists of multiple systems, the average system size must be within this range.

Project Types

Wunder is able to lend to any third-party owned project based on the project's contracted revenue streams. The types of revenue contracts Wunder can fund are:

PPA
Community Solar
Feed-In Tariff
Virtual Net Metering

Wunder is also able to lend to projects where SRECs are a source or even the primary source of revenue. These may be structured using any of the above revenue contracts.

Wunder does not lend to host-owned systems, as these projects do not have contracted revenues. If you are looking for end customer financing via a PPA, please reach out to Flatiron Power.

See our Project Expectations page for more details.

Offtakers

Wunder can lend to projects that have investment-grade, sub-investment-grade, or unrated commercial PPA or feed-in tariff power offtakers. For sub-investment-grade offtakers, Wunder will require 3 years of offtaker financials prior to providing a preliminary term sheet.

For community solar projects, Wunder can lend to any project with any commercial subscription (investment-grade, sub-investment-grade, or unrated) or residential subscription of any credit score. Wunder will require the same vetting as above - 3 years of offtaker financials - for any commercial offtaker who composes more than 20% of the project's subscription. Wunder does not require credit scores for residential offtakers.

For virtual net metering projects, Wunder can lend to any project with an offtake base that fits the above criteria (investment-grade, sub-investment-grade, or unrated). Wunder will require the same vetting as above - 3 years of offtaker financials - for any offtaker who composes more than 20% of the project's power generation. Wunder will also evaluate the site owner to ensure their credibility as an actor in the deal as they are the party responsible for keeping the underlying building occupied.

Offtakers & Interest Rates

Wunder's interest rates are fixed for the full term of the loan and thus not subject to market volatility. Interest rates are based on the project's offtaker:

For PPA, FiT, and VNEM projects with known offtakers, rates are based on the credit rating (if available) or financials of the offtaker(s).
For CS projects with a variety of potential subscribers, rates are based on the community solar program and regional economic conditions
For projects with SRECs as a primary source of revenue, rates will depend on if the REC revenue is fixed or guaranteed vs. on a floating market basis. For fixed SRECs, rates are based on the credit of the guarantor. For floating RECs, rates are based on the presence of any forward sale contract, the credit of the forward sale counterparty, and the risk associated with the long-term volatility in the floating market.

Real Estate Types

As part of our underwriting for behind-the-meter projects - PPAs and VNEM - Wunder considers a downside scenario in which the offtaker goes out of business and must be replaced by a new tenant. For this reason, unless mitigated by strong offtaker credit, Wunder prefers to lend against projects where the underlying real estate has the following criteria:

General purpose: can be leased to a wide range of tenants without requiring a specific skill set or business plan
Good location: in a region with a large population and employment base

Examples of projects that are a good fit under these criteria are warehouses, retail spaces, and office buildings in well-populated metropolitan or suburban areas. Examples of projects that are not a good fit under these criteria are ice rinks, gas stations, and hotels, or retail in an area with low population density.

Fees

Wunder charges only two fees - an origination fee and service fee - on every project. These fees are fixed, giving you certainty to plan for these fees and only these fees in your project budget. Contact your Wunder Account Manager for more details on our fee structure.

Other Information

Wunder lends to project companies that are special-purpose vehicles (SPVs) created to own only the solar system that is being funded. See our Project Expectations page for more details.

If a project consists of multiple systems, the project SPV must own all of the systems that compose the project and no other systems. Projects with multiple systems must have the same offtaker, landlord, PPA contract, and site lease contract.

Interested in seeing a term sheet for a project you are working on? Please reach out to your Wunder Account Manager.