Financing Solar PV at Government Sites with PPAs and Public Debt (Brochure)

Historically, state and local governmental agencies have employed one of two models to deploy solar photovoltaic (PV) projects: (1) self-ownership (financed through a variety of means) or (2) third-party ownership through a power purchase agreement (PPA). Morris County, New Jersey, administrators recently pioneered a way to combine many of the benefits of self-ownership and third-party PPAs through a bond-PPA hybrid, frequently referred to as the Morris Model. At the request of the Department of Energy's Solar Market Transformation group, NREL examined the hybrid model. This fact sheet describes how the hybrid model works, assesses the model's relative advantages and challenges as compared to self-ownership and the third-party PPA model, provides a quick guide to project implementation, and assesses the replicability of the model in other jurisdictions across the United States