Most infrastructure memos open with the tariff, the capacity factor, or the construction budget. Those numbers matter, but they are downstream of a quieter question: can this project legally and physically exist on the timeline the model assumes?

Permits are not a checkbox

A permit is a sequence. Land control, environmental review, interconnection, and local approvals each have their own clock, and none of them move because the financial model says year three. When a sponsor treats permitting as a single line item, the model hides the real risk: delay that compounds financing costs and can miss a tariff window entirely.

What we look at before the spreadsheet

We start with three documents. The interconnection position, including queue date and any upgrade costs assigned to the project. The permit path, with the agency that can actually say no. And the offtake, because a signed agreement with a creditworthy buyer is what turns a site into an asset.

If any of those three is still a hope rather than a filing, the project is not late-stage. It is an option on a process the investor does not control.

How delay shows up in returns

A year of delay is rarely just a year. Interest during construction keeps accruing, equipment prices move, and a contracted price that looked attractive can expire. The projects that hold their return are the ones where the critical path is already in motion, with dated milestones an outsider can verify.

That is the work: price the bottleneck first, then decide whether the yield is real.