Same technology, smarter structure: why investment managers are exploring a new approach to onsite solar
Solar PV on commercial rooftops is nothing new. The panels are the same. The inverters are the same. The engineering is proven and the supply chain is mature. So why are a growing number of institutional real estate investors still struggling to make onsite renewables work across their portfolios?
The answer has never been the technology. It has been the financial structure around it.
The conventional approach – power purchase agreements, third-party energy contracts, complex offtake arrangements – treats solar as an energy product. That framing creates problems for institutional landlords. It introduces counterparty risk with energy suppliers, complicates lease structures, raises questions about asset ownership, and often leaves the investment manager watching value flow to a third-party energy company rather than accruing to the building and its owners.
VerusSol was founded on a different premise: that the value of building-integrated renewables lies not in the electricity they generate, but in the way they are recognised across the institutional capital stack.
The technology itself – panels, inverters, batteries – is mature and commoditised. What no single counterparty has historically owned, however, is the discipline of structuring that technology so its value is recognised simultaneously by every institution in the transaction. VerusSol acts as a partner to the landlord in creating additional asset value, orchestrating – structured, experienced, and ultimately valued – building-integrated renewables across the capital stack, so that the renewable investment is recognised by valuers, qualifies with lenders, and creates measurable tenant benefits.
After years of cross-disciplinary investigation alongside RICS Red Book valuers, board-level technical advisers, lenders and operators, VerusSol arrived at what its founders refer to as the sweet-spot: a single €/sq m rental uplift figure at which seven distinct forces come into balance simultaneously on a given asset. Those forces are tenant economics, energy economics, lease architecture, system design, lender criteria, fund-level economics, and ESG and regulatory positioning.
Structural NOI growth
When that €/ sq m figure is set correctly, no stakeholder funds another’s benefit. Every technical, regulatory and ESG hurdle is cleared without compromise. The landlord sees structural NOI growth, valuation recognition under RICS Red Book methodology, and improved refinancing terms through green finance alignment. The tenant accepts the uplift in exchange for lower operating costs, stronger ESG positioning, and reduced operational risk.
The investment manager sees portfolio NAV uplift, GRESB scoring gains, and improved capital-raising positioning. The investor benefits from brown-discount avoidance and stronger risk-adjusted returns. The lender qualifies for green finance and reduces stranded-asset exposure. One number, five stakeholders aligned, no caveats. Find that number, and the value is creatable for any institutional asset, every time.
The model works because VerusSol has developed the VerusSol Pathway – a structured methodology designed to deliver this value repeatably across assets, tenants and lease structures. The Pathway sequences four phases – stakeholder alignment, technical alignment, execution and delivery, and operational validation – and is reinforced by collaboration with a selected group of best-in-class partners.
Each phase concludes with a verifiable deliverable, and each transition is governed by a clear go/no-go decision. It is the discipline that converts the theoretical sweet-spot into recognised asset value — at the building, at the valuation, at refinancing, and at exit — repeatedly and consistently.
The model works, in short, because it aligns incentives that conventional energy structures leave fundamentally misaligned. The landlord is not selling electricity. The tenant is not buying a commodity. Both are benefiting from a better building – and the value of that improvement is structurally recognised on the balance sheet, not externally on someone else’s.
Stress-tested methodology
VerusSol has spent the past two years developing and stress-testing this methodology across European commercial real estate – warehousing, logistics and industrial – with a particular focus on the asset types and portfolio structures that institutional investors actually hold. The approach incorporates detailed feasibility analysis at the individual asset level, including CRREM-aligned carbon pathway modelling, regulatory compliance assessment, and a proprietary financial structuring tool that calculates the precise rental uplift at which the economics work for both landlord and tenant.
Now, the model is moving from theory to practice.
VerusSol is currently working with a select group of major investment managers to explore pilot deployments on live assets across their European portfolios. These are collaborative, evidence-building exercises – designed to test the financial structure on real buildings, with real tenants, and generate the proof points that will underpin a broader market rollout. The discussions are detailed, the engagement is serious, and the early signals are encouraging.
Evidence-based investment
This is a deliberate approach. Rather than scaling prematurely on the basis of theoretical modelling alone, VerusSol is building the evidence base alongside the institutions that will ultimately deploy the model at scale. The pilots are designed to answer the questions that investment committees will ask: does the rental uplift hold? Does the tenant accept it? Does the asset revaluation materialise? And does the CRREM pathway improve as modelled?
The answers to those questions will shape how institutional capital engages with on-site renewables over the coming years. For investment managers watching the regulatory and market trajectory — tightening MEES requirements, SFDR reporting obligations, occupier demand for green credentials, and the growing obsolescence risk facing energy-inefficient assets — the window to explore this approach on favourable terms will not stay open indefinitely.
VerusSol welcomes enquiries from institutional real estate investors interested in exploring pilot opportunities.
Contact: [email protected]
