What Cash Flow Should We Use
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What Cash Flow Should We Use in renewable energy project finance.
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Project finance Renewable EnergyTranscript
When we're looking at ratios, the first question we should ask ourselves is, what cashflow should we use? We'll look at two different sorts of cashflow. One measure is called cashflow available for debt service, very commonly abbreviated to CFADs. This is the projects operating flow, so how much cash not profit, how much cash comes in from revenue, and how much cash is spent on the operating costs of the project. Notice, it doesn't include interest, it doesn't include dividends. So this number would remain the same regardless of how the project is financed. It doesn't matter if it's a hundred percent equity financed or a hundred percent debt financed or anywhere in between. It should come to the same number because it's about how the project operates. This CFADs cashflow is what's available firstly as the priority to service debt, to pay interest fees, and any principal payments that are due. Out of whatever's left off of that, then the equity shareholders could potentially receive a dividend as a reward for their investment. The other sort of cashflow that we commonly look at in a project is cashflow available to equity. That's the cashflow after meeting all of the expenses, the debt service and the tax. So what is left over after all the commitments of the project have been met. That's the amount of cash over which the directors have some discretion and they could decide to pay a dividend to the shareholders.