The Unison Energy Business Model

The Unison Energy business model sets us apart from our competitors. Our model includes all the tools necessary for client success: we build for the long term, operate for availability, and have a financial interest in the outcome.

Clients often ask how we are different from our competitors. A successful project has three elements: financing, engineering & construction, and operations. Unison Energy handles all three components in-house. Our competitors typically only do one of the three and outsource the others.

We all know what does not work: break-fix maintenance contracts with no financial stake in outcomes, developers that sell their projects to an unknown financing entity before they’re even constructed, design-build firms that build the project and then leave with no stake in the outcome, and financiers that don’t have the operations capability to achieve results.

Unison Energy’s business model is different. Our focus is on aligning our interests with our clients in a long-term partnership where we both have a financial stake in the outcome. Unison invests in the people, technology, systems, and tools to make both us and our clients successful

Zoom

We Finance Projects on Our Balance Sheet for the Life of the Project

Unison Energy finances our projects, with our own capital, on our balance sheet. We do not sell our projects; they remain on our balance sheet for the entire term. Unlike developers, we do not make a quick up-front fee before moving on to our next project. We make our return on our investment over the life of the project, so we are long-term investors and your partner for the life of the system.

Because we are the owners, we have invested in all of the elements to make the project a success, including design and construction, operations and maintenance, and technology. Many vendors will promise third-party financing and will help “find financing.” However, your partner shouldn’t be a bank. A true partnership is a team that stays with you from beginning to end and has a financial stake in the future of your project

We Operate and Maintain the Systems With Our Own Team

When it comes to system uptime, we sit on the same side of the table as our clients. We both care about system availability. Therefore, Unison Energy only bills for when the system is operating and producing both electricity and thermal energy.

To deliver industry-leading uptime, we invest heavily in our internal operations and maintenance team. Advanced training, readily-accessible spare parts, remote monitoring, industry-leading data acquisition, and predictive analytics all form the backbone of our operations model.

Too often we see financing entities trying to offload risk to maintenance firms that are focused on maximizing their own profits. Unfortunately, the client gets lost in the mix.

At Unison Energy, our internal operations team is entirely focused on serving our clients. Industry-leading performance metrics help our clients save money and enable us to meet our own financial returns.

Our Engineers and Project Managers Design and Build for the Long Term

Most developers make their money up front by building the project and selling it to a financial investor. This incentivizes them to either charge as much as possible in construction or to cut corners on costs. It certainly doesn’t mean they are designed for maintenance. Unison Energy generates our financial return over time. We are incentivized to build systems right the first time and design for long-term operations.

Given this commitment, we have built a first-tier engineering and project management team. Our internal team has decades of experience in every aspect of electrical and mechanical design and project management. We have worked on dozens of projects, each with solar, batteries, fuel cells, gas turbines, and reciprocating engines. We have implemented systems ranging from small supermarkets to utility power plants and everything in between.

Our Unique Business Model

If a provider does not invest their own capital, employ internal engineering and project management team, and oversee internal maintenance staff, they likely cannot deliver excellent uptime and performance.

At Unison Energy, we are proud to have built a business model unique to the industry. We fund our projects with our own capital, build systems recognizing we are the long-term owners, and invest heavily in our operations to maximize uptime for our systems.