Every industrial solar conversation eventually arrives at the same question: who owns the asset? The answer isn't a technical one, it's a balance-sheet decision, and it's usually made before a single panel is specified. Get it wrong and you either tie up capital a growing business needed elsewhere, or hand away savings you could have kept.
The two poles
Under CAPEX, you invest in and fully own the plant. It's the highest-IRR route over the asset's life, it qualifies for accelerated depreciation, and you keep complete control of the energy cost curve, but it uses your capital and your balance sheet.
Under OPEX / RESCO, Polaris invests, installs and operates the plant. You pay only for the energy consumed, at a pre-agreed tariff typically well below grid rates, commonly around 80% below grid, predictable across a 25-year asset life. There's no upfront investment and no operational responsibility, but you don't capture the full economics an owned asset would deliver.
What the numbers actually say
For well-structured industrial solar, simple payback typically runs 3.5–7 years, with annualised IRR in the 18–28% range depending on system size and tariff band. Under Indian income-tax provisions, accelerated depreciation of up to 40% in Year 1 is available, which is what pulls CAPEX's effective payback in sharply for enterprises with the taxable profit to absorb it. NPV is positive from Year 1 in most C&I deployments under either structure; the difference is who's holding that NPV on their books.
The routes in between
CAPEX and OPEX aren't the only two options. A lease-based structure gives you positive cash flow from day one on fixed payments, with ownership transferring to you at the end of the tenure, a middle path for businesses that want eventual ownership without the full upfront outlay. Group-captive and open-access structures go further still, letting you source power off-site across multiple facilities under a shared equity or wheeling arrangement, useful where roof space is the constraint rather than capital.
How we help clients decide
We don't lead with a structure, we lead with a financial model. Every Polaris engagement starts with load analysis and generation simulation against your actual consumption, then an investment-grade model covering IRR, payback, depreciation and year-by-year cash flow for each route that fits your books. The structure follows the numbers, not the other way round, and the same team that builds the case stays accountable for it through commissioning and 25 years of operation.
