Aurora’s financial analysis portal is designed to accurately calculate a solar installation’s (referred to as a ‘project’ in Aurora) cash flows, and clearly communicate those cash flows to the client. We believe that the amount of cash a client saves or generates is the best measure of a project’s financial return. Accordingly, all the formulas used in Aurora (and published in this guide) are derived from analyzing a project’s current or future expected cash flows.
Aurora's financial analysis conventions:
- Cash flows occur at the beginning of the relevant period.
- Metrics that are computed over time (such as average monthly savings) always reflect discounted values.
- Metrics that occur at one time (such as cost based incentives) are discounted when used in a time series calculation (such as average monthly savings, LCOE, NPV, payback period, etc.).
- The exception is loan payments, which are given as nominal amounts.
- True-up month is December, with no rollover to the following year.