A biogas (waste-to-energy) plant converts organic waste—such as agricultural residue, food scraps, or sewage—into biogas through anaerobic digestion. This biogas, primarily composed of methane, can be used to generate electricity, heat, or processed into renewable natural gas. The plant also produces nutrient-rich digestate, which can be used as fertilizer. Biogas plants help reduce landfill use, lower greenhouse gas emissions, and provide a sustainable energy source from waste materials.
This Financial model presents a development and operations scenario of a Biogas Plant detailing capex, opex, energy yield, tariff structures, and project financing. The model supports revenue forecasting, IRR analysis, and risk assessment, with adjustable inputs for feedstock availability, gas yield, energy pricing, capital expenditure, operating expenses, and financing.
The structure of the template follows Financial Modeling Best Practices principles and is fully customizable.
Model Structure
• General Setup & Acquisition Inputs
Production and Operations-related inputs, including Project Timing, Production Assumptions (Generator Capacity, Availability Factor, Parasitic Load, Biogas Volume, Required Feedstock, Digestate Volume, Plat Degradation, and Energy Balance sanity check), Revenue (PPA Terms and Tarriffs, Waste Heat Revenue, Digestate Revenue, Tipping Fee Revenue), Operating Expenses, Capital Expenditures and Financing through Equity, Debt, and Government Grants, Tax Benefits (ITC or Tax Free period)
• Development Budget
Plant Development Assumptions including Land costs, Hard costs, Soft costs, Development Timing, and Development Cash Flow distribution (Straight-line, S-Curve).
• Debt Schedule
Loan amortization Schedule of project's debt including an optional moratorium and interest-only (IO) period.
• Monthly & Quarterly Cash Flows
These 2 reports present all the operating cash flows of the project over monthly and quarterly periods. It allows users to control the timing and how the cash flows over that time.
• Annual Cash Flow
A roll-up of the monthly cash flows into annual periods from Plant Development to Net Cash Flow after taxes. It includes also calculation of Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE), and Debt Service Reserves.
• Performance Reports
The model includes KPIs and Perfomance dashboard reports assisting users to monitor project's operations and profitability.
• Project Returns
Report presenting project unlevered and levered returns (Pre-Tax & After-Tax IRR, MOIC, Cash Outflows, Inflows and Profits)
• Investors' Returns Waterfall
A 3-tier IRR hurdle waterfall model to distribute proceeds between investors. The report provides inputs for up to 4 different LPs with different equity contribution percentages and up to 4 different GPs with different equity contributions and equity share percentages. The first tier distributes cash flow to the partners until the LPs has achieved some defined preferred return and received a full return of capital. Assuming the preferred return hurdle is hit in tier one, cash flow is distributed in tiers two and three based on a defined promote structure and hurdle rates as outlined by the user.
• Project Executive Summary:
A high-level summary of the project's key data, including:
– Key Project Metrics (Project Timing, Production Metrics, Payback Period, LCOE, Free & Clear Return Ratio, Cash-on-Cash Ratio, DSCR)
– Uses & Sources of Cash
– Operations Summary (Revenue, Net Operating Income, Net Cash Flow)
– Project Level Return Metrics (Unlevered & Levered)
– Partnership (LP's & GP's) Level Returns Summary (IRR, MOIC, Cash Outflows, Cash Inflows, Profit)
– Business Performance Dashboard
Detailed instructions for the use of the model are included in the Excel file.
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Source: Best Practices in Energy Industry, Oil & Gas, Integrated Financial Model Excel: Biogas (Waste to Energy) - Project Finance Model Excel (XLSX) Spreadsheet, Profit Vision
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