Application and Risk Mitigation of the “Direct Lease + Equity Pledge” Model in the Green Energy Sector

Abstract

The green energy transition faces three major financing bottlenecks: insufficient collateral, residual value volatility, and rapid technological iteration. Traditional credit and bond instruments have significant limitations in covering light-asset projects. This paper constructs a triple-layer credit enhancement structure of “direct lease + equity pledge + cash flow supervision,” incorporating shareholders’ residual claims into the seizable asset pool. Based on option pricing theory, the optimal equity pledge ratio is derived to be between 8% and 12%. Taking the 2 billion yuan energy storage project in Ningxia Baofeng as a typical case, this model achieves a 2.3 percentage point reduction in financing costs, a 6-month shorter construction period, and zero overdue payments. A quantitative analysis of 128 green leasing projects from 2019 to 2024 indicates that the equity pledge ratio has a significant inverse U-shaped relationship with the project’s non-performing rate, with the curve’s inflection point at 10.2%. For every 10 percentage point increase in the cash flow supervision ratio, the financing cost can be further reduced by 0.5 percentage points (Luo, M., Du, B., Zhang, W., Song, T., Li, K., Zhu, H., ... & Wen, H., 2023). A comparison of the systems in China and the United States shows that differences in registration time, liquidation speed, appraisal standards, and tax incentives can account for 70% of the cross-border funding cost gap. This paper proposes policy recommendations such as establishing a five-day green channel for equity pledge, jointly building a dynamic database for technological residual value, and promoting mutual recognition of leasing standards, providing replicable and scalable solutions for green leasing to support the global carbon neutrality goal.