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One project record that lenders and tax equity can trust

In the final months before commercial operation, the owner, the EPC contractor, the independent engineer, lenders, tax equity investors and the offtaker each keep their own tracker, and funding waits while they reconcile. Leading developers are moving renewable project finance reporting onto one live project record that every party can read.

Solar and windSegeta Insights
Solar and wind
The number$$2.6M

of extra carry for each month term conversion waits

What is at stake

Each month that conversion waits can add about $$2.6 million of carry to a 300 MW solar project.

Where days are lost
  1. Funding draws and the engineer's review
  2. Completion certificates and tax equity funding
  3. Term conversion and the COD notice

Project finance rests on a simple premise: capital is released when evidence shows that the work is done. On a US solar or wind project, that evidence is now reviewed by more parties than ever, including construction lenders, tax equity investors, credit buyers and their insurers, the independent engineer and the offtaker. Each reads it through its own checklist, and each holds its own version of the project's status.

As a result, physical completion and financial completion have drifted apart. In the third quarter of 2025, projects representing about 20 percent of planned utility-scale solar capacity reported a delay, and much of that capacity sat in late construction or testing, where funding conditions cluster.1 A project can close its punch list on time and still wait weeks for conversion while separate trackers are reconciled. This article examines why more capital now waits on the same completion evidence, where renewable project finance reporting loses days and what a single shared record changes.

More capital providers now wait on the same completion evidence

The capital stack behind a typical US solar or wind project has more parties than it did five years ago. Crux estimates that total tax credit monetization reached $$63 billion in 2025, with tax equity investment above $$36.6 billion and the transferable credit market close to $$42 billion, while lending to clean power, fuels and manufacturing projects reached about $$120 billion.2 Hybrid structures, in which a tax equity investor sells part of its credits to a third-party buyer, made up more than 75 percent of tax equity commitments in 2025, which adds a credit buyer and its insurer to many closings.2

The money at stake in each closing has grown as well. Tax credits now account for 30 to 70 percent of the cost of a US renewable energy project, and tax equity for an investment tax credit deal is around 45 percent of the capital stack, according to market participants interviewed by Norton Rose Fulbright.3 North American project finance lending rose 41 percent in 2025 to just under $$260 billion, provided by more than 100 active infrastructure lenders, each with its own diligence team, engineer and closing checklist.3

Renewable project finance reporting loses days at three handoffs

Each capital provider funds against evidence that physical work is complete, and that evidence is produced by people who report to a different organization. A foundational FMI study for Autodesk found that poor project data and miscommunication caused 48 percent of all rework in US construction, and the same failure mode appears in closing documents.4 Three handoffs account for most of the days lost between mechanical completion and term conversion.

Lenders, tax equity investors and credit buyers each committed tens of billions of dollars to US clean energy in 2025.

Exhibit 1Debt, tax equity and credit transfers each funded tens of billions in 2025US clean energy capital by channel, 2025, billions of dollars (channels overlap)
Project finance lending120
Tax credit transfers42
Tax equity investment36.6

Source: Crux, 2025 Market Intelligence Report, via Renewable Energy Magazine, 2026

01Funding draws and the engineer's review

Each monthly draw request combines the EPC contractor's percent complete, the owner's budget, invoices and lien waivers, which the independent engineer may review under a funds control service before the lender advances money.5 Progress is typed again into each party's spreadsheet, so a disputed quantity can hold a draw for a week while the contractor waits for payment.

02Completion certificates and tax equity funding

The independent engineer certifies mechanical completion, substantial completion and placed in service, often after witnessing commissioning and capacity tests.5 In a typical solar deal the tax equity investor funds 20 percent of its investment at mechanical completion and the remaining 80 percent at completion, so every certificate that waits on a punch list or test report also delays a large funding.6

03Term conversion and the COD notice

Conditions precedent to term conversion typically address project completion deliverables, so the engineer's certificate and its supporting records gate the conversion as well.7 The offtaker's COD notice draws on the same test results and utility correspondence, yet lenders' counsel, investors' counsel and the offtaker each assemble their own checklist from the documents they receive.

Connected engagement gives every party one live project record

Leading developers are beginning to treat the conditions for each funding as obligations, each with an owner, a deadline and a cost for every day it stays open. A live layer reads the systems already in use, including Primavera P6, SAP or Oracle, commissioning databases, email and site messaging, and maps every condition precedent to the evidence that satisfies it. It runs the same four-step loop that the earlier articles in this series describe:

  1. Detect

    a mismatch between trackers on the day it appears, such as a punch list the contractor has closed while the engineer's report still shows items open.

  2. Explain

    which certificate, funding and conversion condition the gap affects, with the source document for each item.

  3. Recommend

    the fastest path to closure, such as a targeted site revisit or a corrected punch list sent to the engineer the same day.

  4. Execute and track

    each agreed action until the certificate is signed, measuring the financing carry avoided in days and dollars.

The same record can give the independent engineer, lenders, tax equity investors, credit buyers and the offtaker permissioned, live status, with plain-language questions answered from the underlying documents. Artificial intelligence does the reading, linking and drafting of status reports and closing checklists, while the CFO, the engineer and each counterparty remain accountable for every certification and funding decision.

A delayed term conversion can cost about $$88,000 a day

Cost of delay in renewable project finance is the daily financing carry and deferred funding created when a draw, a tax equity funding, a term conversion or a COD notice waits on evidence that the work is complete.

Each month that conversion waits can add about $$2.6 million of carry to a 300 MW solar project.

Exhibit 2. Estimated daily financing carry while conversion waits, composite 300 MWac solar project

ComponentBasisEstimate per day
Construction financing carryCapital cost of about $$510 million at the 2024 median of $$1.70 per watt AC; assumes 60 percent drawn at a 7 percent all-in rate, as in Part 1 of this series 8About $$58,700
Additional carry as draws approach the capLenders allow combined construction and bridge loans of up to 90 percent 3; assumes the extra 30 percent of cost is drawn at the same 7 percent rateAbout $$29,300
Total gross carry while conversion and funding waitSum of the two componentsAbout $$88,000

Source: Segeta estimate based on Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Norton Rose Fulbright data; financing assumptions are illustrative.

On these assumptions, a 30-day slip in conversion costs about $$2.6 million of carry and a 60-day slip about $$5.3 million. Part of that carry continues after conversion, because term loans price at 162.5 to 187.5 basis points over SOFR against about 150 basis points for a clean construction loan, so the net saving comes mostly from the tax equity share of about 45 percent of the capital stack that retires bridge debt.3 If the COD notice itself waits on the same evidence, the deferred energy revenue estimated in the first article of this series, about $$110,500 a day, adds to that exposure.

What CFOs and project finance leaders can do now

  1. 01Map every condition precedent to its evidence

    List each condition for draws, tax equity funding, conversion and the COD notice, and name the document and the person that will satisfy it.

  2. 02Agree one completion record with all counterparties

    Settle with the engineer, lenders and investors which punch list, test register and schedule count as the source for certification.

  3. 03Price every funding condition in dollars per day

    Attach the daily carry to each open condition, so a missing lien waiver is discussed with the urgency of a late transformer.

  4. 04Give external parties live, permissioned status

    Replace monthly status decks with read access to the same record, so the engineer and lenders review current evidence before each site visit.

  5. 05Measure the time from completion to certification

    Report the days between physical completion of each milestone and the signed certificate, and set a target for each closing.

Developers cannot shorten an independent engineer's review or a lender's credit process on their own, yet they can control how quickly complete evidence reaches every party. Those that run the final months before COD from one live record are likely to convert and fund sooner, and they may find that lenders and investors offer better terms on the projects that follow.

Questions leaders ask

What delays construction loan conversion on a solar project?

Conversion usually waits on completion deliverables, led by the independent engineer's certificate and the records behind it, such as punch lists, test reports and lien releases. When the EPC contractor, the owner and the engineer keep separate trackers, the certificate can lag physical completion by days or weeks, and each day adds financing carry to the project.

What does an independent engineer do in renewable project finance?

The independent engineer gives lenders and investors a third-party view of a project from pre-financing diligence through construction and operation. During construction the engineer may review draws under funds control, monitor progress, witness commissioning and capacity tests and certify mechanical completion, substantial completion and placed in service, each of which can gate a funding.

When does tax equity fund a solar project?

Funding is usually staged. In a typical solar deal described by Norton Rose Fulbright, the tax equity investor funds about 20 percent of its investment at mechanical completion and the remaining 80 percent when the project is complete. Each funding depends on certificates and evidence that must be reconciled across the owner, contractor and engineer.

How much does a delayed term conversion cost a solar project?

On illustrative assumptions, a 300 MW solar project costing about $$510 million can carry about $$88,000 a day in gross financing cost while conversion and tax equity funding wait. A 30-day slip adds about $$2.6 million, and the net cost depends mainly on the share of bridge debt that tax equity would retire.

Notes and sources
  1. US Energy Information Administration, "Fewer US solar projects are reporting delays in their expected online date," Today in Energy, November 2025, eia.gov.
  2. Crux, 2025 Market Intelligence Report, as reported by Renewable Energy Magazine, Panorama, February 24, 2026, renewableenergymagazine.com.
  3. Norton Rose Fulbright, "Cost of Capital: 2026 Outlook," Project Finance NewsWire, January 2026, projectfinance.law.
  4. FMI and Autodesk, "Construction disconnected: The high cost of poor data and miscommunication," 2018, autodesk.com. Cited as a foundational study.
  5. Partner Engineering and Science, "Independent Engineer," service description, accessed October 2026, partneresi.com.
  6. Keith Martin, "Tax equity and construction delays," Norton Rose Fulbright, Project Finance NewsWire, June 2022, projectfinance.law.
  7. Foley & Lardner, "Top ten risk mitigation issues in renewable energy construction loan agreements," April 2023, foley.com.
  8. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, "Utility-Scale Solar, 2025 Edition," October 2025, emp.lbl.gov.