General Terms
Due diligence allows a buyer to undertake searches and research a property’s ownership chain of title to determine if the title is marketable and non-encumbered. Due Diligence periods have a set period of time and buyers have the opportunity to terminate the contract as a result of receiving any adverse results.
Professional landmen interact and negotiate directly with landowners to purchase or lease the surface or mineral rights on behalf of a development company. Generally Landmen work in the Solar, Wind and the Oil and Gas industries.
A land lease is a contract by which one party conveys land or resource rights to another for a specified time, usually in return for a periodic payment. Different types of land and mineral resources can be leased for example one can lease solar, wind, water, mineral rights, etc.
A lease bonus is the cash consideration that is paid by the lessee for the execution of an oil and gas lease by a landowner. It is usually based on a per acre payment. Learn more about lease bonuses here.
A lease option is a contract by which one party agrees to grant the exclusive option to execute a pre-negotiated lease agreement for a certain amount of time. The pre-negotiated lease agreement outlines the lease royalty, bonus and primary term a property would be subject to if the option is executed. The Lease Option expires worthless if not executed on time. Lease Options will commonly be offered to landowners with an upfront bonus cash payment.
A lessor is a person who leases or grants operating rights of a property to another.
A lessee is a person who holds the lease of a property; the lessee owns the right to operate on and develop a property or resource owned by the lessor.
A purchase sale agreement is an agreement between a buyer and a seller of property, company stock, or other assets.
A royalty is the interest retained from the output of a property when the owner enters into a lease agreement. Royalty interest entitles the property owner to receive a portion of the production or a portion of the gross revenue from sold production.
Solar Glossary
Community solar is a solar power system that generates electricity that is used by more than one household. Sometimes called a solar garden, it allows members of a community who cannot (or do not wish to) install solar on their property to enjoy the benefits of solar. Learn more about community solar here.
Solar irradiance is the direct, diffuse, and reflected solar radiation that strikes a surface, usually expressed in kilowatts per square meter. The solar irradiance multiplied by time equals insolation. Learn more about solar irradiance here.
Panel efficiency, also known as Photovoltaic (PV) Efficiency, represents how well a solar panel converts sunlight into electricity. Most solar panels have 14 to 16 percent efficiency; high-efficiency panels are rated just above 20 percent.
A Photovoltaic (PV) Array is an interconnected system of solar panels that function as a single electricity-producing unit. The panels are assembled as a discrete structure, with common support or mounting. In smaller systems, an array can consist of a single module.
A Photovoltaic (PV) cell is the smallest semiconductor element within a PV module to perform the immediate conversion of light into electrical energy (direct current voltage and current). Also known as Solar Cells. Different types of solar cells include: Monocrystalline Solar Panels, Polycrystalline Solar Panels and Thin-Film Solar Cells.
Photovoltaics is the complete set of components for converting sunlight into electricity by the photovoltaic process, including the array and balance of system components.
A photovoltaic system is the complete set of components for converting sunlight into electricity by the photovoltaic process, including the array and balance of system components.
Rooftop solar is a photovoltaic (PV) system that has its electricity-generating solar panels mounted on the rooftop of a residential or commercial building or structure. The various components of such a system include photovoltaic modules, mounting systems, cables, solar inverters battery storage systems, charge controllers, monitoring systems, racking and mounting systems, energy management systems, net metering systems, disconnect switches, grounding equipment, protective devices, combiner boxes, weatherproof enclosures and other electrical accessories.
Rooftop solar is a photovoltaic (PV) system that has its electricity-generating solar panels mounted on the rooftop of a residential or commercial building or structure. The various components of such a system include photovoltaic modules, mounting systems, cables, solar inverters battery storage systems, charge controllers, monitoring systems, racking and mounting systems, energy management systems, net metering systems, disconnect switches, grounding equipment, protective devices, combiner boxes, weatherproof enclosures and other electrical accessories.
Solar irradiance is the amount of radiant light energy from the sun that reaches the Earth's atmosphere or surface at a given time. Learn more about solar irradiance here.
Solar resources generally referrs to the amount of energy a land parcel receives or the amount of solar insolation a site receives, usually measured in kWh/m2/day, which is equivalent to the number of peak sun hours.
Solar Renewable Energy Credits (SRECs) represent the environmental attributes of electricity generated through solar energy. One SREC is issued for every 1 megawatt-hour (MWh) of electricity produced by a qualifying solar generator. Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) in certain States include a special solar “carve-out” provision, which mandates utilities to achieve a certain amount of electric generation through solar energy.
Wind Glossary
A "straight line wind" is a powerful, horizontal wind that originates from a thunderstorm and moves in a straight path, unlike a tornado which rotates; it is essentially a strong wind gust from a thunderstorm that does not spin, causing damage by pushing outward in a straight line when it reaches the ground, often reaching speeds exceeding 100 mph. Learn more about straight line wind risks here.
Generally refers to the structure that houses a wind energy converter, the device that converts the wind's kinetic energy into electrical energy. Converts the energy of moving air into electricity. Learn about how wind turbines work here.
Wind turbine blades are airfoil-shaped blades that harness wind energy and drive the rotor of a wind turbine. Turbine Blades can range in size from 50 - 100 meters in diameter.
A wind turbine rotor is the complete unit of a wind turbine consisting of the blades and the hub of the turbine.
A wind farm is a collection of wind turbines with integrated operation that supply electricity, most often to the electrical grid, via at least one substation.
Carbon Glossary
A carbon credit is a tradable commodity that represents one ton of carbon dioxide that has either been removed from the atmosphere or has been avoided from being released into the atmosphere.
Reforestation is the practice of planting trees on land that was previously deforested.
Greenwashing is a deceptive marketing practice of conveying false information or misrepresentations about how a company’s products or services are environmentally friendly to attract environmentally conscious consumers.
Regenerative agriculture is an approach to farming intended to restore the organic carbon of degraded soils to reduce climate impact and to improve the health of the soil. Learn more about regenerative agriculture here.
Afforestation is the practice of planting trees in an area where there previously were no trees.
A verified carbon credit (also referred to as a verified carbon unit, or VCU) is a tradable certificate or permit that represents a reduction or removal of 1 metric ton of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. They are ‘verified’ in the sense that they are independently assessed and certified by a third party. VCU’s provide a transparent and standardized way to incentivize and finance carbon credit projects.
A type of carbon credit agreement that involves postponing the timbering of trees in a forest to earn carbon credits.
Blue carbon is carbon is captured by the world’s ocean and coastal ecosystems (ie; mangroves, marshes, seagrasses).
Biochar carbon is a technique through which carbon from certain biomasses is transformed into stable carbon that can be captured in the soil, preventing the CO2 from entering the atmosphere. Learn more about biochar carbon credits here.
EV Charging Glossary
Usually, people opt for Alternating Current (AC) charging to charge their electric vehicles during the night. AC charging operates at lower voltage levels, either at Level 1 (120 volts, which is standard household current) or Level 2 (240 volts, equivalent to the power used by an electric dryer). While the lower voltage results in a slower charging rate, AC charging is a convenient option for installation in most homes. It serves as an excellent solution for residential areas, workplaces, multi-unit housing complexes, and other locations where vehicles are parked for extended periods, such as hotels, municipal parking garages, or airport parking facilities.
An EV driver is an individual who operates an electric vehicle (EV) and utilizes charging facilities both at their residence, workplace, and at various public or private locations.
Charge point operators (CPOs) install, manage, and optimize charging stations, offering various services like diagnostics, maintenance, and pricing management to ensure a seamless network operation. They may either own the charging infrastructure or connect owners of EV charge points. CPOs can collaborate with roaming network hubs and provide eMSP services while enabling access to their charging stations by other eMSPs. Typically, CPOs partner with site owners to install chargers, collect operation fees, and potentially share revenue generated from EV charging.
Charge point installers typically sell, install, and maintain charging stations from various manufacturers for location owners, also known as charge point hosts. Their customer base encompasses residential, retail, business centers, real estate developers, hotel chains, car dealers, parking operators, energy, oil and gas companies, CPOs, government entities, and anyone who offers parking spaces. They handle hardware maintenance and support and are increasingly exploring the provision of EV charging software solutions for various applications, including home, workplace, and CPO services.
A distribution network operator is a licensed company responsible for the distribution of electricity. These entities own and manage the network of cables and towers that transport electricity from the national transmission grid to households and commercial establishments.
Direct current (DC) charging for electric vehicles offers faster charging speeds because DC can be delivered directly to the EV's battery at power levels typically higher than those of AC charging. The speed of charging depends on the level of DC power supplied, and a faster charge is possible if the EV is designed to handle such power. As you approach approximately 80% battery capacity during your charging session, the rate of charging will slow down to preserve the vehicle's battery life, although this exact point may vary depending on your EV model.
Level 1 EV Charging involves using a standard household outlet, providing 120V output and a current between 8 and 20 amps. Level 1 charging can take as long as 24 hours to completely charge an empty electric vehicle (EV) battery.
The majority of charging stations fall into the Level 2 category, offering 240V output with a capacity of up to 80 amps. It typically takes approximately 4 hours to fully charge an empty battery using Level 2 charging.
Often referred to as Fast Charging, Level 3 chargers employ DC (Direct Current) to rapidly charge depleted batteries in as little as 30 minutes. Level 3 charging systems can deliver up to 900V and over 100 amps. All Tesla Superchargers are Level 3 chargers.
Battery Storage Glossary
Also referred to as battery energy storage systems (BESS), ‘battery storage’ refers to the use of rechargeable batteries to store electrical renewable energy for later use. Learn more about battery storage here.
Capacity is the amount of energy a battery or ESS can store (expressed in units of kilowatt-hours).
Load shifting is the practice of adjusting the timing of energy consumption to match periods of lower demand or lower prices, often using energy storage systems to help balance the electrical grid.
Relative capacity, also referred to as ‘useful capacity,’ refers to how much energy is available to be used when a battery is fully charged. For example, a 4 kWh battery with 75% DoD effectively only has 3 kWh of energy available for use when fully charged.
A surge is a load’s startup current of electricity. In some cases, more power is required to ‘start’ the load than to operate the load, which is described as surge power.
Minerals Glossary
An API well number is a well identifier assigned as defined in API (American Petroleum Institute) Bulletin D12A, as amended. The API Well Numbers are assigned by the appropriate state or federal regulatory agency.
(1) The proper plugging and abandoning of a well in compliance with all applicable regulations, and the cleaning up of the wellsite to the satisfaction of any governmental body having jurisdiction with respect thereto and to the reasonable satisfaction of the operator.
(2) To cease efforts to find or produce from a well or field.
(3) To plug a well completion and salvage material and equipment.The American Petroleum Institute is the primary trade association representing the oil and natural gas industry in the United States.
An aquifier is an underground layer of water-bearing permeable rock or unconsolidated materials (gravel, sand, silt or clay) from which groundwater can be extracted using a water well.
An oil barrel, abbreviated as BBL, is a volume unit used in reference to crude oil, bitumen, condensate, or natural gas liquids. In the United States and Canada, one BBL equals 42 US gallons.
A unit of volume measurement used for petroleum and its products (7.3 barrels = 1 ton: 6.29 barrels = 1 cubic meter).
BOED referrs to the barrels of oil equivalent per day.
A basin is a large depression in the Earth’s surface in which sediments accumulate usually by way of some water course.
CCS is a process by which carbon dioxide emissions are captured and removed from the atmosphere and then stored, usually by way of an injection into a secure underground geological formation. Learn more about CCS here.
Directional drilling is the practice of drilling non-vertical wells. Directional drilling can allow access to otherwise inaccessible oil and gas fields (e.g., under a lake, under a town) or allow multiple wellheads to be grouped together at one surface location.
The use of a rig and crew for the drilling, suspension, completion, production testing, capping, plugging and abandoning, deepening, plugging back, sidetracking, redrilling or reconditioning of a well (except routine cleanout and pump or rod pulling operations) or the converting of a well to a source, injection, observation, or producing well, and including stratigraphic tests. Also includes any related environmental studies. Associated costs include completion costs but do not include equipping costs.
Hydraulic fracturing is the fracturing of rock by a pressurized liquid. Typically, fracking fluid is injected at high pressure into a wellbore to create small fractures, which allow fluids like natural gas, petroleum, uranium-bearing solution, and brine water to migrate to the well. Grains of proppant (sand or aluminum oxide) hold these fractures open.
A mineral owner is the entity who owns the minerals under a tract of land, and the right to extract those minerals.
Temporarily abandoning a well is the act of isolating the completed interval or intervals within a wellbore from the surface by means of a cement retainer, cast iron bridge plug, cement plug, tubing and packer with tubing plug, or any combination thereof.
Water Glossary
An aquifier is a geologic formation(s) that is water-bearing. A geological formation or structure that stores and/or transmits water, such as to wells and springs. Use of the term is usually restricted to those water-bearing formations capable of yielding water in sufficient quantity to constitute a usable supply for people's uses.
A basin is an area of land that drains all the streams and rainfall to a common outlet such as the outflow of a reservoir, mouth of a bay, or any point along a stream channel.
A flood is an overflow of water onto lands that are used or usable by man and not normally covered by water. Floods have two essential characteristics: The inundation of land is temporary; and the land is adjacent to and inundated by overflow from a river, stream, lake, or ocean.
A flood plain is a strip of relatively flat and normally dry land alongside a stream, river, or lake that is covered by water during a flood. Learn about the impact of flood zones on property values here.
A floodway is the channel of a river or stream and the parts of the floodplain adjoining the channel that are reasonably required to efficiently carry and discharge the flood water or flood flow of a river or stream.
An injection well refers to a well constructed for the purpose of injecting treated wastewater directly into the ground. Wastewater is generally forced (pumped) into the well for dispersal or storage into a designated aquifer. Injection wells are generally drilled into aquifers that don't deliver drinking water, unused aquifers, or below freshwater levels.
A reservoir is a pond, lake, or basin, either natural or artificial, for the storage, regulation, and control of water.
Renewable Energy & Electric Grid Glossary
AC is a type of electrical current, the direction of which is reversed at regular intervals or cycles. In the United States, the standard is 120 reversals or 60 cycles per second. Electricity transmission networks use AC because voltage can be controlled with relative ease.
A converter is a device that converts a direct current (DC) voltage to another DC voltage.
DC electricity is a type of electricity transmission and distribution by which electricity flows in one direction through the conductor, usually relatively low voltage and high current. Transmitting DC power over a long distance is inefficient.
The distance to interconnection represents the distance measured in miles from a parcel to the nearest point of interconnection. The Point of Interconnection is typically a physical substation, node or other LMP Pricing location that can safely deliver the generated electricity to the electric grid. Grid-tied systems can directly access wholesale electricity markets.
A distribution line is the line or system for distributing power from a transmission system to a consumer that operates at less than 69,000 volts. When a voltage greater than 1 kilovolt and less than 40 kilovolt is used for a particular power line, the power line is typically referred to as a distribution line.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency is an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security
The FREC regulates the price, terms and conditions of power sold in interstate commerce and regulates the price, terms, and conditions of all transmission services. FERC is the federal counterpart to state utility regulatory commissions.
Also known as the federal solar tax credit, the FTC currently allows you to deduct 26% of the cost of installing a solar energy system from your federal taxes and has no cap on its value. The ITC will change to 22% in 2021.
A Feed-in Tariff is a financial incentive that provides a fixed price for the purchase of electricity generated (per kWh) from a qualifying renewable resource for a given period of time. All of the electricity generated is sold to the utility at a fixed price, which is usually set above the retail price of electricity. A FiT guarantees a fixed premium rate for a given period of time, which provides a reliable revenue stream for developers to finance investments in renewable energy.
Energy generating systems that are connected to the electricity transmission or distribution Line
An ISO is the entity responsible for maintaining system balance, reliability, and electricity market operation. A neutral and independent organization with no financial interest in generating facilities that administers the operation and use of the transmission system. ISOs exercise final authority over the dispatch of electricity from generators to customers to preserve reliability and facilitate efficiency, ensure non-discriminatory access, administer transmission tariffs, ensure the availability of ancillary services, and provide information about the status of the transmission system and available transmission capacity.
A kilowatt is the standard unit of electrical power equal to 1000 watts, or to the energy consumption at a rate of 1000 joules per second.
A kilowatt hour refers to 1,000 thousand watts acting over a period of 1 hour. The kWh is a unit of energy. 1 kWh=3600 kJ.
A megawatt hour refers to 1,000 kilowatts, or 1 million watts; a standard measure of electric power plant generating capacity.
Also known as an electricity power agreement, a PPA is a contract between two parties, one which generates electricity and one which is looking to purchase electricity.
The federal PTC is a per-kilowatt-hour tax credit for generating electricity, for a certain period of the solar system’s operation. Projects that claim the Investment Tax Credit (ITC) are ineligible for the PTC and vice versa.
Property tax incentives include exemptions, exclusions, abatements, and credits. Most property tax incentives provide that the added value of a renewable energy system is excluded from the valuation of the property for taxation purposes. For example, if a new heating system that uses renewable energy costs more than a conventional heating system, the additional cost of the renewable energy system is not included in the property assessment. In a few cases, property tax incentives apply to the additional cost of a green building. Because property taxes are collected locally, some states have granted local taxing authorities the option of allowing a property tax incentive for renewables.
Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) represent the environmental attributes of electricity generated through a qualifying renewable energy resource. One REC is issued for every 1 megawatt-hour (MWh) of electricity produced by the qualifying source.
Renewable portfolio standards require utilities to use or procure renewable energy or renewable energy credits (RECs) to account for a certain portion of their retail electricity sales according to a specified schedule. (Renewable portfolio goals are similar to RPS policies, but goals are not legally binding). Learn more about RPS here.
Used for the transmission of electrical power from generating substation to the various distribution units.. Direct current is used in the transmission line for transmitting high voltage, over long distance high voltage.
A watt is the rate of energy transfer is equivalent to one ampere under an electrical pressure of one volt. One watt equals one joule per second. It is the product of voltage and current (amperage).