Baseball teams don’t step onto the field on Opening Day without months of analysis, preparation, and a strategy. The best front offices don’t rely on gut feeling alone—they apply analytical decision-making to build winning teams, optimize rosters, and outmaneuver their competition. Their advantage isn’t just experience, it’s the ability to process information quickly and act with conviction before hesitation costs them the season.

Winning in renewable energy finance in 2025 is no different.

Developers must commit capital and resources with incomplete information—not just considering today's landscape but forecasting what will drive value months and years ahead. Yet too often, inaction due to uncertainty is the silent killer of renewable energy projects—stalling progress, derailing financings, and eroding returns. 

Like in baseball, renewables developers who leverage analytics at speed can analyze opportunities differently and act faster—despite unknowns—creating a competitive advantage.

The Need for Clarity in Today’s Market

Baseball managers face difficult roster decisions every spring—who to cut, who to trade, and who to sign to long-term deals. They evaluate a mix of knowns and unknowns—just like developers navigating today’s clean energy market.

With tax credit incentives shifting, interest rates fluctuating, and financing structures evolving, many developers struggle to capture the impacts of such changes, aggregate them for analysis, and articulate capital decisions. The key question is—are they preparing their teams with a dynamic winning strategy? A general manager can get lucky for part of the season, but reaching the playoffs requires methodical refinement, cohesion, and execution beyond intuition.

Playing Moneyball⁽¹⁾ in Clean Energy Finance: When Does a Project Pencil?

Just as baseball teams use advanced stats (WAR, OBP, and exit velocity) to evaluate players, renewable developers must apply rigorous financial scenario analysis to decide which projects make the cut.

Here’s what really determines whether a project should move forward:

• Technology Risk: Does the project rely on proven technology, or does it need a bankability study?
• Total Cost: What’s the true cost to develop, build, and operate the asset?
• Revenue Model: Who will buy the power, and how are cost savings realized?
• Financial Incentives: What tax credits, depreciation benefits, and rebates apply?
• Financing Strategy: Will this be a standalone project or part of a larger portfolio?
• Execution Risk: Has the company successfully closed complex financings before?
• Balance Sheet Strength: Is there enough capital to support completion and performance guarantees?

Without an analytics-driven approach, developers risk swinging at the wrong pitches—wasting time and capital on projects that don’t fit their larger investment strategy.

Portfolio Strategy: The Front Office Approach to Financing

Just like in Moneyball, where winning teams don’t rely on star players but on strategically balanced rosters, a smart financing strategy isn’t about one project—it’s about the whole portfolio.

• A developer that focuses on smaller, bespoke portfolios of run-of-the-river hydropower, enhanced geothermal, standalone battery storage, or behind-the-meter solar has a different capital structure and cost of capital than one that builds utility-scale solar + storage with investment-grade PPAs.
• Smaller portfolios benefit from direct tax credit transfers, sidestepping the stricter underwriting standards of bank tax equity.
• Larger portfolios can access bankable tax equity or hybrid cash equity structures, significantly lowering the cost of capital.

Like a baseball GM assembling the right mix of veterans and prospects, developers must optimize their portfolios to maximize value. A smaller developer might sell projects to an Independent Power Producer (IPP) with the ability to bundle projects into a larger, bankable tax equity transaction. Meanwhile, an IPP might acquire projects strategically to diversify risk and enhance overall returns.

The Real-Time Financial Optimization Imperative

Baseball teams don’t wait until mid-season to adjust their lineups—they optimize in real-time based on injuries, slumps, and new data. Clean energy developers need to take the same approach with their financial models and portfolio strategy, (especially with new rules from the federal government potentially coming!).

• At what price ($/W) should you buy or sell a portfolio?
• How do you balance risk factors (geographic concentration, credit ratings, energy price volatility) against potential rewards (development fees, IRR, MOIC, and cash yield)?
• Does a rigid, project-specific hurdle rate prevent you from making strategic financing decisions? (Spoiler: It might keep a risk-reducing project out of your portfolio, making financing impossible.)
• Are you leaving money on the table by selling projects too early? Would ownership under a direct tax credit transfer structure result in better long-term returns?

The best teams—and the best renewable energy developers—don’t just go for the obvious plays. They optimize based on what will make the biggest long-term impact.

The 2025 Season is Coming—Are You Ready?

As we approach this season and beyond, the industry faces major unknowns:

• Will ITCs and PTCs remain at current levels with adders?
• What happens if the federal tax rate or depreciation structures change?
• Are you strategically positioned to adapt and capture value?

Just like a front office looking beyond traditional baseball stats, renewable developers who go beyond outdated finance models and embrace real-time optimization will find hidden value, uncover new deal opportunities, and gain a competitive edge to win at the plate.

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Note (1) Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game is a book by Michael Lewis, published in 2003, about the Oakland Athletics baseball team and its general manager Billy Beane. It describes the team's sabermetric approach to assembling a competitive baseball team on a small budget. It was adapted into the 2011 film Moneyball, starring Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill.

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