Sectors / Hydrogen & Clean Fuels
Where First-of-a-Kind Technology Meets a First-of-a-Kind Market.
Hydrogen, sustainable aviation fuel, and biofuels face the two hardest financing problems at once — unproven commercial-scale technology and offtake markets that are still forming. Solving both together is precisely what we do.
The Financing Reality
Two risks that would each stall a financing on their own — arriving together.
A commercial-scale hydrogen electrolyzer or SAF facility is often a first-of-a-kind plant: the technology is proven in demonstration but not yet at full scale, so lenders can’t underwrite its performance. At the same time, the offtake markets are young. SAF buyers are motivated but the contracts are still maturing; hydrogen offtake often depends on counterparties and infrastructure that don’t fully exist yet; biofuel economics swing on feedstock and credit markets. Most advisors can address one of these problems. The projects stall because both have to be solved at once.
Our Role
How we help.
On the technology side: performance insurance and FOAK/SOAK risk transfer that move scale-up risk to rated carriers, so a lender underwrites the carrier rather than the unproven plant. On the revenue side: offtake floors, counterparty credit support, and environmental-attribute monetization — clean-fuel and carbon credits structured into a bankable revenue leg. And around both: capital-stack design, tax-credit monetization (including clean-hydrogen and clean-fuel production credits), and placement into investors who understand this frontier. Solving the technology and the offtake in a single structure is what makes these projects financeable.
Solutions for This Sector
Which capabilities apply.
All three, in concert: Technology & Performance Risk, Offtake & Revenue Structuring, and Capital & Tax Credits. This is the sector where the full method matters most.
A Recent Structure
De-risking a first-of-a-kind SAF facility.
A first-of-a-kind sustainable aviation fuel facility, a roughly $300M project, had proven its process at demonstration scale but couldn’t get lenders to underwrite commercial-scale output. Its airline offtakers were willing but the contracts were early-stage and not yet bankable.
We transferred the scale-up performance risk to a rated carrier through a technology performance structure, placed a floor under the SAF offtake revenue, and structured the clean-fuel production credits into a contracted revenue leg.
The technology risk moved off the lenders’ desk and onto a rated balance sheet, and the project advanced into senior-debt structuring that had previously been unreachable.
Building a clean-fuels project stuck between unproven scale and an unformed market?
That’s the hardest financing problem in climate — and the one we’re built for.