The financial case for every solar project, year by year
pvSpline carries the simulated production into a full financial model: NPV, IRR, LCOE and payback over the project’s life, with the year-by-year cash-flow table that your client, your bank or your investor can check.
The indicators
- NPV, discounted at the return you require on your own funds.
- IRR on your own funds and on the whole installation, before tax and, with corporate tax on, after it.
- LCOE, discounted at the weighted average cost of capital.
- Payback to a tenth of a year, over any horizon from 1 to 100 years.
French incentives and taxes, built in
- EDF OA purchase obligation: the run takes the surplus or full-sale tariff from the grid the CRE publishes, as in force on your grid-connection request date, and the report cites that grid. See the tariffs in force.
- VAT at 5.5%, 10% or 20%, recovered by a VAT-registered company or paid by a household.
- IFER, the yearly tax on plants of 100 kW or more, at the published rates.
- Grants: investment grants, grants per kWp, production incentives and energy-savings certificates (CEE).
Financing and corporate tax
- Loans: constant annuity, constant amortization or bullet, with the share financed, the rate and the term.
- Corporate tax: straight-line or declining-balance depreciation with the French statutory coefficients, the tax treatment of grants, and losses carried forward.
- Price escalation from measured history: by default the electricity price grows at the rate the French regulated tariff actually grew in the CRE’s published history.
Risk, in figures
- P50, P75, P90 and P99 exceedance yields: the financial table follows the one you pick, and lenders size debt on P90.
- DSCR and LLCR, computed natively, with stress tests on CAPEX, OPEX, tariff and degradation.
- Lifetime realism: climate-adjusted degradation, battery wear and replacement, and grid-outage and maintenance availability, year by year.
Checkable, line by line
The year-by-year projection exports to Excel, the branded PDF report prints it in full with the carbon balance, and anyone can check a sealed report on the verification page.
A financial study in four steps
- On the Financial card of the Project tab, enter the installation cost, maintenance and grants.
- Tick French incentives (CRE grid) and enter the grid-connection request date.
- Add a loan or corporate tax if the project has them.
- Run the simulation, pick P50 or P90, then export the projection or the report.
Questions
Is the self-consumption prime included?
For a grid-connection request filed before 5 June 2026, the run applies that quarter’s S21 grid, prime included. The order of 1 June 2026 abolished the investment primes for later requests and set a single tariff, TPa.
Is the IRR before or after tax?
The headline IRR is before tax, for comparability. With corporate tax on, the results and the report add the IRRs after tax.
Which figure goes to the bank?
Report P50 to your client and P90 to the bank. The financial table and the report follow the percentile you pick.
The fastest way to judge a simulation tool is to run it on a project you already know.