Texas solar project secures financing through fractionalized virtual power purchase agreements with video gamers.

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"Fractionalized" virtual power purchase agreements and renewable energy certificate transactions are helping underwrite clean energy projects, according to an executive involved in the transaction.

SuperPower, a California-based company, developed a subscription offering tied to renewable energy and claimed the offtake for the project. The company says 10 MW of solar can offset approximately 125 million hours of gaming each year. Modern gaming consoles draw significant power from users' homes, and games played over networks drive additional power demand from cloud data centers and other infrastructure.

"There's a lot of gamers out there, millions of them, and it's pretty energy intensive," said Eugster, a former Texas utility executive. "And it's a segment people don't really think about."

Eugster said Ever.green, the firm facilitating the deal, believes the ThreeW VPPA is among the first arrangements of its kind, though the underlying structure is not revolutionary. Whereas major, power-hungry companies like Microsoft and Meta have the resources to be sole VPPA offtakers for hundreds of megawatts of capacity at a time, most companies lack such scale. Ever.green facilitates "fractionalized" transactions for smaller amounts of energy capacity or renewable energy certificates, which Eugster described as the company's "main offering."

A VPPA is a type of contract for difference that shifts energy price exposure from the project owner to the offtaker. In volatile wholesale energy markets like the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), VPPAs can offset development costs and reduce projects' market risk by providing predictable contracted revenue upfront. Renewable energy certificates, or RECs, similarly provide contracted revenue to the seller without shifting energy risk to the buyer.

Upfront contracted revenue gives developers flexibility to shape projects in fast-changing energy markets. ERCOT exemplifies this dynamic: Texas has nearly 30 GWh and counting of energy storage on its grid, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association. The rapid battery buildout has dampened wholesale price volatility but challenged the economics of some proposed energy storage projects. With sufficient contracted revenue, project developers may have more flexibility to design and pace projects—for example, by proceeding with a solar-only first phase while intending to add storage later.

Ever.green has structured transactions around a repowered wind farm in West Texas, a 28-MW solar farm backed by Wells Fargo in South Carolina, and a 3.2-MW solar procurement by a West Virginia school district, among others. The West Texas wind farm transaction, which included fractional commitments from small buyers, nearly doubled the facility's capacity. The project's smallest contract was for just 1,000 MWh annually.

"Every place is unique and different, but what is common is those projects need long-term offtake to help stand up," Eugster said.