How investors assess UK energy projects

What this guide is for

This is a reading list for people who look at solar, storage, EV charging, heat or other energy infrastructure as projects. It describes the questions a review usually contains. It does not tell you what to buy, what return to expect, or which WattFund opportunity to choose.

Public examples on WattFund are currently illustrative. Live opportunities are introduced through the platform when they are reviewed. Energy investment puts capital at risk, including total loss.

Stage comes first

An early site, a costed design and an operating asset are different risk objects. Capital that funds surveys is not the same as capital that funds construction. Treating every project as “ready to build” because the technology is familiar is how diligence fails.

Ask what stage the owner claims, then check whether the documents match that claim.

Technology and site control

Technology tells you which technical facts matter: yield and roof for solar, duration and connection for BESS, power and dwell for EV charging, building demand for heat. Site control tells you whether anyone has the right to build — freehold, lease, option, landlord consent, and for how long.

A strong technology story on uncontrolled land is not a project you can diligence yet.

Technical information and cost

Technical information is the design envelope, surveys, grid position and remaining unknowns. Cost is a delivery estimate against a scope, with a date and exclusions. A round-number capex with no provider and no scope is not a cost.

Feasibility and costing are related and they are not the same. Investors should know which they are looking at.

Commercial model and capital requirement

The commercial model is who owns the asset, who takes the power or sessions, who operates it, and how money is supposed to come back. The capital requirement is the gap being asked for, matched to that stage.

Debt, equity, owner capital and operator-funded hardware are different instruments. The project should say which conversation it is opening — or that it has not decided.

Risk, delivery and documentation

Risk sits in connection, planning, construction, counterparties, revenue assumptions and remaining information gaps. Delivery is who will actually build and operate, and whether that capability has been identified. Documentation is the evidence, released deliberately rather than emailed to everyone.

WattFund’s role for investors

Registered investors can explore structured project information, see known versus on request, register interest and, where both sides agree, progress into a Deal Room. WattFund does not advise, recommend, rank opportunities, lend or hold client money.

Nothing here is a recommendation to invest in renewable energy as a class, or in any project.