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Green Cat Renewables (GCR) is an engineering consultancy, specializing in professional development support services for renewable energy projects across North America and Europe.
With 15+ years in the renewable energy industry, GCR has developed extensive experience in greenfield project development. We have a comprehensive understanding of the technical and environmental considerations involved with the development of renewable energy and storage projects. Our team is highly adept in navigating constraints to provide reliable and meaningful site selection recommendations to our clients.
Our Project Development service offering, and experience, underpin our key service offerings in Permitting and Engineering and allow GCR to provide a full “wrap around” development service for renewable and power generation projects. These services include:
The first step in the development of any renewable, or power generation, project is conducting a feasibility assessment to analyze project viability and gain an understanding of development risk. Drawing on our full range of in-house capabilities, GCR produce and deliver comprehensive studies, customized to individual client requirements.
A feasibility assessment would generally include the following:
The feasibility assessment clearly identifies a proposed plan for the development of the project, which allows our clients to make strategic decisions with regards to progressing the project to the next stage.
The design and optimization of a renewable or power generation project is generally an iterative process. This process utilizes the results of site-specific environmental assessment work, GIS constraints mapping, observations from site visits and site investigation, a constructability review, stakeholder and regulatory authority input, public engagement, input from the technology provider and the resource of the site. GCR have experience designing unique sites with varying capacity, topography, climate and environmental concerns. As a result, we have hands-on experience in dealing with, and finding solutions for, a wide range of often complex environmental, technical and engineering constraints.
As an engineering consultancy specializing in renewable development, GCR utilize industry knowledge and technical capabilities to assist our clients in the selection of appropriate technology solutions for their projects. We are experienced in technology selection for wind, solar, hydro and BESS projects. services. For more information please refer to our Technical Procurement services.
Renewable energy from wind, solar and hydro are inherently affected by the frequency, intensity and variability of the basic energy resource. As intermittent sources of energy, dependent upon local weather patterns and seasonal variability, robust and bankable resource assessments form the backbone to every renewable energy project.
Our technical analysts are well versed in wind, solar and hydro resource assessments, applying industry accepted statistical methodologies to both measured and modelled data, to develop realistic resource projections for specific site locations. Specialist software packages are used to inform our assessments, which include PVSyst, Openwind, Windographer, WindFarm, RETScreen, LowFlows, amongst others.
A robust resource assessment enables sensible energy yield forecasts to be derived, considering technology specifications and the effects of ancillary infrastructure. These form the basis for projecting key investment metrics, such as P50, P90 and P99 energy yield estimates over the commercial lifetime of a project.
GCR support grid interconnections across all types of energy generation projects. Our team of electrical engineers and grid specialists provide technical expertise and advice on all electrical aspects of the project, from initial feasibility to commercial operation (COD). At the initial feasibility stage our team are able to provide strategy and advice for locating generation projects (based on our knowledge and understanding of the grid networks), advise our clients on potential competing capacity, assist in navigating the interconnection process, and lead discussions with the network operators to progress the project.
As more variable generation is introduced onto the grid, the management of networks becomes more complex. GCR work with the various network operators to provide innovative and flexible grid solutions, such as Active Network Management, for connecting renewable generation. On the technology side, GCR is also actively involved in hybrid generation, combining renewables such as wind and solar, or combining renewables with storage, or non-renewable generation, to ‘level out’ the variable generation profile when renewable projects are independent and isolated.
A key aspect of the development of any renewable energy or power generation project is navigating the permitting process. The permitting process will follow guidance and legislation laid out at the Federal, Provincial/State and Municipal levels. To ensure project success, it is vital to have a comprehensive understanding of the requirements and how these may impact project size, location and type. The GCR team have significant expertise in providing project specific permitting strategy advice, which is tailored to the needs of our clients. For further details please refer to our Permitting services.
GCR provides due diligence technical services to both prospective private equity investors and lenders alike, for renewable energy and power generation projects. GCR utilize “on-the-ground” experience to analyze renewable energy and power generation proposals at pre-construction and operational phases, as well as completing construction stage monitoring for our clients.
Our due diligence reviews are tailored to the needs of the investor or lender, with risks and issues analyzed to reflect the needs and priorities for a broad range of stakeholders, including the long-term equity investor, senior debt and subordinate debt providers.
Typical subjects covered in our due diligence reviews may include:
Diligent asset management of operational projects ensures project assets are regularly maintained, and faults are rapidly rectified. In turn, the availability of a site can be maximized, resulting in increased revenue generation for the investor.
GCR provides asset management services to utility scale solar and wind projects. The scope of services is adapted to individual projects and asset owners, who may have differing monitoring and reporting requirements to satisfy company boards, shareholders and debt providers.
Our Facility Management services include:
Please contact GCR to learn how we can assist with a professional and independent review of your projects.