Financial Model Game plan - Q2
🎯 The 3 Goals
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Microgrid unit economics model
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Fundraising narrative
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Stress test your monetization models (Owned vs Partner)
🧠Phase 1 (Week 1–2): Build Financial Clarity (Foundation)
1) Microgrid Unit Economics Model
What you’re building
A per-site financial model that answers:
“If we deploy one microgrid, does it make money?”
Step 1: Define core inputs
Start simple (don’t overcomplicate):
Costs (CapEx)
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Battery (e.g., 10kWh setup)
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Inverter
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Installation (+20%)
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Metering hardware
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Any fixed setup costs
Revenue
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Avg monthly revenue per household
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Number of households (e.g., 10 → 100 → 360)
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Tariff (or effective price per kWh)
Operating costs (OpEx)
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Maintenance
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Staff/ops allocation
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Platform/software (NFE OS)
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Losses / non-payment buffer
Step 2: Build outputs
You want 5 key metrics:
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Monthly revenue per site
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Monthly profit
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Payback period (months)
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Gross margin (%)
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Cash flow over time
Step 3: Answer key questions
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How long to recover CapEx?
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What happens if:
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Usage drops 20%?
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Costs increase 15%?
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What is your minimum viable scale per site?
Deliverable
👉 A simple Google Sheet model (I can help you structure this next)
🧠Phase 2 (Week 2–3): Stress Test Your Two Models
Now apply the model to your two strategies:
Model A: NFE-Owned Microgrid
What to evaluate
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Total capital required per site
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Revenue collected directly
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Payback period
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Cash constraints (how many sites you can deploy)
Key insight you want:
“How fast can we scale before we run out of cash?”
Model B: Partner-Owned Microgrid
What to evaluate
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Your revenue:
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Flat fee per customer
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+5% of electricity sales
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Your costs:
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Ops + maintenance
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Key insight:
“Is this a high-margin, low-capex business?”
Compare side-by-side
|
Metric |
NFE-Owned |
Partner Model |
|---|---|---|
|
Capital required |
High |
Low |
|
Margin |
High (long-term) |
Lower but steady |
|
Risk |
Higher |
Lower |
|
Speed of scale |
Slower |
Faster |
Strategic output
You should be able to say:
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“We lead with Partner model to scale fast”
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or
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“We prioritize Owned model for long-term value”
👉 This becomes core to your pitch
🧠Phase 3 (Week 3–4): Build Your Fundraising Narrative
Now turn your numbers into a story investors understand
1) Problem (you already do this well)
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Unreliable grids
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Diesel backup risks
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Growing urban demand
2) Solution (tighten this)
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“Community microgrids that turn backup power into primary infrastructure”
3) Business Model (now backed by numbers)
Use your model to clearly show:
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Revenue per site
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Margin
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Payback
4) Traction
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Pilot (10 homes)
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Phase 2 (100 homes)
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Pipeline (360 apartments)
5) Scaling Strategy (THIS is key)
From your analysis:
Example:
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Phase 1: Pilot + validate
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Phase 2: Scale via partner model
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Phase 3: Selectively own high-value sites
6) Use of funds
Your model should let you say:
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“$300K deploys X sites”
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“Each site generates $Y/month”
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“Break-even in Z months”
Deliverable
👉 A clean 8–10 slide pitch (or 1–2 page memo)
🧠Phase 4 (Week 4–6): Add Financial Discipline
This replaces what a CFO would start doing.
1) Monthly financial tracking
Track:
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Revenue per site
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Cost per site
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Collection rates
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Downtime
2) Define 5 core KPIs
For NFE, I’d suggest:
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Revenue per customer
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Cost per customer
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Payback period per site
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System uptime (%)
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Collection efficiency (%)
3) Cash planning (critical)
Build a simple view:
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Cash today
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Monthly burn
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Months of runway
⚠️ Critical mindset shift
You’re moving from:
“We are building microgrids”
to:
“We are deploying capital into energy assets that must return money”
That shift is what investors care about.
đź§© How this all connects
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Unit economics → proves viability
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Model comparison → defines strategy
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Narrative → unlocks capital
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Tracking → sustains growth
If you want next step
We can go practical immediately:
👉 I can help you build your actual unit economics sheet using your real numbers (battery costs, revenue, etc.)
That will unlock everything else much faster than staying conceptual.
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