How It Works

A BESS Development Team Without the Overhead

You focus on closing deals. We permit your projects. Here is what working with Carina looks like: who is on the team, what the development process produces, and what it costs compared to the alternative.

Section 01

A Fractional Development Management Office

When a developer engages Carina, they are not hiring a consultant. They are securing a fractional Project Management Office built for battery storage: a codified management infrastructure with PMP-certified project management, an investor-grade PM portal, 600+ tasks organized across a formal Work Breakdown Structure, a data room with 140+ documents per project, and a tested process for scoping and managing Engineers of Record.
The PM portal is a branded, members-only environment where the client’s team sees live dashboards, project plans, and data room contents in real time. The client can invite anyone, including investors, lenders, and independent engineers, to view their portfolio on their own terms, with their own branding.
This is the equivalent of having an in-house development management office without the 6-12+ months of recruiting and the overhead required to build one. The engagement funds this management infrastructure. Specialist work and performance fees are separate, billed as consumed, with full visibility through the portal dashboard.
We complement your existing team rather than compete with it. If you have an interconnection manager, we do not duplicate that role. If you have civil engineering coverage but no fire protection expertise, we fill the gap. The scope is tuned to what you actually need.

Land origination campaigns are a separate engagement for developers who need Carina to source and secure sites before development begins. Learn more about Greenfield Origination →

Section 02 / The Economics

What It Costs (and What It Replaces)

The fully loaded cost of a single senior BESS development professional is approximately $230,000 per year. That is one person, covering one discipline, after 6-12+ months of recruiting. Carina’s engagement delivers a coordinated team across multiple disciplines from day one.

Column A

One Senior Hire

$230,000+

per year, fully loaded
Base salary
~$170,000
Bonus (25-35%)
Bonus (25-35%)
Benefits and overhead
additional
Total
approximately $230,000+ per year
Covers one discipline
6-12+ months to recruit, onboard, and make productive
Fixed cost regardless of project activity
No specialist bench, no project controls infrastructure, no codified BESS development process

Column B

Carina's Development Management

$96,000

per year, at $8,000 monthly engagement
Monthly engagement: $8,000 ($96,000 per year)
Covers: PMP-certified project manager, program management and quality control, PM portal with project plans and data room, internal coordination across all disciplines
Specialist hours billed as consumed across BESS engineering, fire protection, electrical, interconnection, civil, FEOC compliance, and permitting
NTP success fee aligns Carina’s incentives with your project outcomes. Multi-discipline team from day one
53-76% the annual cost of one senior hire, depending on portfolio size and specialist activity

The specialist hours are the same hours a developer pays for either way. Whether you build an internal team or work with Carina, the project needs a Battery of Record review, a fire protection screening, civil site analysis, interconnection management, and AHJ permitting coordination. Those hours exist in both scenarios. The difference is whether you also build the management layer from scratch, or start with one that has been refined across dozens of BESS projects.

Every specialist on a Carina-managed project is an independent practitioner engaged directly for their expertise. No institutional overhead baked into their rates: no office space subsidies, no HR layers, no business development staff. You pay for hours of actual work, not hours of institutional cost structure.

Section 03 / The Engagement Flow

How a Project Moves Through Carina's Process

Every Carina engagement enters the same development process: a six-phase, nine-discipline project plan producing a project finance-ready data room. The engagement can begin at any point in the development lifecycle. Here is what the process looks like.

1

The Site Reality Check (Fatal Flaw Analysis)

Every project begins with the same gate: a structured screening of the site across roughly 70 line items covering land dimensions, permitting and zoning, fire and safety, environmental constraints, site access, site conditions, substation and interconnection, utilities, and open research items. For land origination clients, the FFA runs before the option is signed. For clients who bring a site, the FFA runs before the site is onboarded into the PM environment.

The FFA is not a database lookup. Carina’s AHJ permitting specialist contacts county planning, zoning, building, fire, and DOT offices directly to confirm required permits, setbacks, BESS-specific ordinances, and public hearing requirements. The civil specialist runs a parametric Net Buildable Acreage model to determine whether the parcel can physically hold the target capacity after accounting for equipment footprint, fire code setbacks, stormwater, access roads, and zoning buffers.

The deliverable is a client-ready report with a clear verdict (Feasible, Conditionally Feasible, or Not Feasible), a permitting matrix, and a risk heat map. Every Medium and High risk item is connected to a specific task in the development plan that would de-risk it if the project advances. Discovering a fatal flaw at this stage costs under $5,000. Discovering it during permitting costs $500,000.

Learn more about the Fatal Flaw Analysis →

2

Project Plan and Data Room Setup

Once the FFA clears, the PMO stands up the project in the PM portal and builds the data room. The project plan is a multi-phase structure covering the full development lifecycle, from internal gate approval and feasibility screening through site diligence, design and permitting, procurement, and NTP readiness. Each phase produces progressively refined cost estimates and deliverables that feed the data room.
Each task in the plan has an assigned responsible party, a duration, predecessor dependencies, and a deliverable that lands in a specific folder in the data room. Phase gates block advancement until prior-phase deliverables are complete. A project does not move from design and permitting to procurement without the conditional use permit in hand and the interconnection agreement executed.

3

Specialist Coordination and Execution

This is where the day-to-day work lives. Carina’s in-house specialists execute the full development scope, producing informed professional guidance, technical recommendations, and the inputs that make downstream engineering engagements efficient and BESS-specific. They do not stamp drawings or produce for-design deliverables. They prepare the project for engineering, then scope and manage the Engineers of Record who execute stamped design.
A typical week on an active project: the civil specialist reviews the EOR’s draft grading plan against the Net Buildable Acreage model and flags a stormwater conflict. The AHJ permitting specialist has a call with the county planning director to confirm the CUP hearing schedule. The interconnection specialist files a response to an ISO deficiency notice. The fire protection specialist reviews the OEM’s UL 9540A test report and updates the fire setback estimate. The PMP updates the project plan, marks a deliverable as received, triggers the next task, and adjusts the critical path for a schedule shift.

The PMO coordinates all of it: setting development strategy, drafting EOR scopes of work, reviewing EOR deliverables for BESS-specific completeness, managing the invoicing gate (Carina approves consultant invoices before the client sees them), and maintaining the data room. All communication between Carina and the client is reviewed daily. Every deliverable and pending item is logged in the project plan. Every document shared, by anyone on the project, goes into the data room automatically, without the client needing to ask or remind. The data room builds itself as the project builds, not as a last-minute assembly exercise before financing.

4

Engineers of Record

When a project requires stamped, for-design deliverables (site plans, Hazard Mitigation Analyses, one-line diagrams, certified calculations for financing), the client engages an Engineer of Record. The EOR contract, the professional liability, and the E&O insurance sit between the EOR firm and the client. Carina is never a party to that contract.
Carina’s role is to ensure the right EOR is engaged with the right scope at the right time: we recommend qualified firms, draft their scopes of work using standardized templates, coordinate their deliverables within the project plan and critical path, review their work product for BESS-specific completeness, and manage the invoicing gate.
Without Carina’s inputs, EORs work from generic assumptions. With Carina’s specialist-produced inputs, EORs work from BESS-informed specifications that reduce redesign risk and compress the permitting timeline.

5

NTP and Handoff

The engagement produces a project that is fully permitted, technically de-risked, and data-room-ready: all required permits obtained, interconnection agreement executed or modified, Design Basis OEM selected, FEOC compliance position documented, and 140+ documents organized to answer lender, tax equity, and independent engineer diligence questions before they are asked.

Section 04 / The Specialist Bench

The Team Behind Every Project

Carina’s specialists work across the full BESS development scope. Each operates under a Carina agreement that defines their work as informed professional guidance, not engineering of record. The team covers:

BOE

BESS Owner's Engineering

Equipment evaluation, OEM RFI/RFP management, Design Basis Memo development, degradation modeling, performance and warranty review, augmentation planning, PCS architecture assessment. Two specialists covering utility-scale and distributed/microgrid/DC-coupled configurations.

FPE

Fire Protection Engineering

Fire code stack identification, NFPA 855 and IFC compliance analysis, UL 9540A test report review, fire-driven setback estimation, Hazard Mitigation Analysis scope development, Emergency Response Plan coordination, AHJ fire department engagement. Licensed PE with multi-state licensure.

GRD

Grid and Interconnection

POI screening, queue strategy, interconnection application support, system impact study coordination, material modification assessment, IA/GIA negotiation support, milestone alignment between permitting and interconnection schedules.

ELC

Electrical Engineering

Conceptual single-line diagrams, 30% design coordination, station service sizing, collector system routing, security systems design, EPC bid package preparation. Licensed PE covering distributed and utility-scale BESS.

CIV

Civil Engineering and Water Modeling

Desktop civil evaluation, parametric Net Buildable Acreage modeling, grading and stormwater feasibility, impervious surface analysis, access road geometry, civil scope development for EOR-stamped plans.

FEOC

FEOC Compliance

OEM supply chain screening, MACR calculation, BOC strategy, supplier certification and documentation, effective control contract review, client-facing FEOC defense in tax equity diligence sessions, regulatory monitoring. Learn more about FEOC Compliance Support →

AHJ

AHJ Permitting

Direct engagement with county planning, zoning, building, fire, and DOT offices. Human-verified permitting matrix built on actual conversations with the people who will review the application. Former city planner.

Stakeholder

Stakeholder

Stakeholder mapping, community sentiment assessment, public hearing strategy, opposition risk analysis, elected-official engagement.

PMO

PMP-Certified Project Controller

Schedule management, phase gate enforcement, deliverable tracking, data room maintenance, critical path analysis, and real-time dashboard reporting through the PM portal.

Section 05 / What Stays on Your Side of the Table

What We Do Not Do

Carina manages the development process. We do not replace the decisions that belong to the developer.
You decide which projects to advance and which to kill. You negotiate the offtake and the financing. You select the EPC and the long-term service provider. You own the project.

We do not stamp drawings

We do not stamp drawings or produce for-design deliverables. When a project requires stamped engineering, we recommend qualified Engineers of Record, draft their scopes, coordinate their deliverables within the project plan, and review their work for BESS-specific completeness. Licensed engineering opinions and professional liability sit with the insured EOR, not on your balance sheet.

We do not sell equipment

We evaluate every OEM on the market against your specific site, fire code, and interconnection constraints. We are on your side of the table, not the equipment side.

We do not provide legal or tax advice

FEOC compliance analysis is informed professional guidance. Binding tax positions and safe harbor elections are your tax counsel’s decision.

Close The Execution Gap

Partner with Carina to bring discipline and technical rigor to your development pipeline
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