What this project finance template is for

This model shows how a large infrastructure asset is financed and repaid: a big upfront capex, funded by senior debt plus sponsor equity, repaid from long-term contracted revenue and tested on debt service coverage and equity return. It is built for project finance analysts, infrastructure and energy investors, lenders reviewing a base case, and students learning the mechanics. The worked example is a 500 MW offshore wind farm: 1.5bn of capex at 3,000k per MW, 65% gearing at 5.0% over 18 years, 525m of sponsor equity, construction in 2026 and 20 operating years to 2046.

What is inside

Assumptions: every driver on one sheet, inputs in blue (capacity, capacity factor, availability, degradation, PPA price, capex per MW, gearing, interest rate, tenor, O&M per MW, tax rate, asset life, construction and operating flags).

Generation: gross and net annual generation in MWh, with degradation over the life of the asset.

P&L: revenue, O&M, EBITDA, depreciation, interest, tax and net income for every year.

Financing: debt drawdown at financial close, straight-line principal repayment over the tenor, capex and equity draw.

Cash Flow and Balance Sheet: wired, not pasted. The cash flow rolls into the balance sheet and a Balance Check line stays at zero in all 21 years; the senior debt amortises to zero at maturity.

Returns and Coverage: CFADS, debt service, DSCR per year, minimum DSCR (1.34x) and project equity IRR.

Investor Dashboard: the key outputs at a glance.

How to use it

Open the Assumptions sheet and change the blue inputs. Everything else is a formula: generation, the three statements, the debt schedule, the DSCR and the IRR recompute at once. Test a lower PPA price, a higher gearing or a shorter tenor and watch the minimum DSCR. To reuse the model for another asset, keep the structure and swap the asset drivers: capacity factor and degradation for solar or storage, sites and lease rates for towers or data centres, traffic and tariff for a toll road.

Why this template

Project finance models are often too heavy to audit. This one keeps the skeleton that every infrastructure deal shares (sized debt, coverage ratios, equity return, balancing statements) in a structure you can read in a few minutes. Formulas are visible, nothing is locked, no macros and no hard-coded values inside the statements. Note: distributions follow a full cash sweep to equity, so cumulative distributions can exceed accounting profit; add a distribution lock-up or shareholder loans if your jurisdiction requires distributable reserves.

About the author

Built by Anthony Barbey, former Director in financial modelling and project finance at Deloitte Finance, now a fractional CFO. The model was built in Layerz, a structured spreadsheet ready for AI, and exported to Excel. A documented version of the model, with its structure explained, is available on GitHub (anthomakr/finance-models).

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