Derborence Advisory is an independent boutique that evaluates energy and infrastructure projects on behalf of the investors and operators deploying capital into them — rigorous, independent, and free of placement conflicts.
Derborence evaluates energy and infrastructure projects for the investors, lenders, and operators deciding whether to commit capital to them — and delivers an independent, written opinion on whether the project holds up.
A typical engagement begins when a client has a specific decision on the table: a renewable project under diligence, an acquisition target, a development opportunity, a reinvestment in existing assets. The client has a model, a memo, a data room — and needs an outside view before they commit.
We build or rebuild the financial model from the ground up, stress-test the commercial assumptions behind it, and deliver a clear view on whether the project's economics, risk structure, and strategic logic hold up. The output is a written evaluation a client can take to a board, a credit committee, or an investment committee.
The practice is small by design. Every engagement is led and executed by the principal. We do not place capital, sell product, or accept success fees — our only output is our opinion, which is the entire reason a client hires us.
Every project evaluation we conduct is examined from four distinct angles. The client receives a single, coherent opinion — informed by all four.
We build or rebuild the project's financial model from first principles — cash flows, capital structure, debt sizing, tax treatment, and returns — and stress-test it across commodity, policy, and cost scenarios. The client receives a model they understand and can defend.
We pressure-test the commercial story — offtake contracts, revenue assumptions, counterparty risk, market dynamics, and competitive positioning. The question we answer is simple: does the business case behind this project actually hold up?
Drawing on specialty energy insurance experience, we examine the risk side of a project that most diligence overlooks — construction, operational, counterparty, and catastrophe exposure, and whether the insurance and contractual structure is genuinely bankable.
For projects that span the United States and the DACH region, we evaluate them in full cultural and regulatory context — IRA treatment, EU taxonomy, permitting regimes, and the commercial norms of each side of the Atlantic.
The energy transition has generated no shortage of forecasts, frameworks, and fund prospectuses. Good counsel requires something earlier and more useful — a clear view of what is actually hard about it.
The binding constraint on the energy transition is no longer money — it is the capacity to distinguish projects that deserve capital from projects that merely attract it. Our work exists to sharpen that distinction.
We do not place capital, sell product, or accept success fees. Every incentive in this practice is aligned with delivering the most useful opinion we can — not the most flattering one. Independence is the entire product.
The transition is a reorganization of existing capital, assets, and operating models — not a greenfield exercise. We evaluate projects with the patience of a restoration, not the triumphalism of a revolution.
Derborence is led by a single principal. The work a client receives is the work of the person whose name appears on the engagement — every time, without exception.
A hybrid practitioner, with experience spanning energy & power risk, global financial services, and commercial operations — developed across institutions in both Europe and North America.
Eric Becker founded Derborence Advisory to consolidate a career spent at the intersection of capital and industry. His professional experience includes energy & power specialty at Marsh, asset & wealth management at Deutsche Bank in Zürich, cloud applications and business development at Oracle, and financial operations at an Austin-based early-stage venture.
His academic work concentrates on the energy industry value chain, project finance and evaluation, and fund accounting within the energy sector. He holds a general lines property & casualty license in Texas, and served previously in the Swiss Armed Forces as a military command support specialist.
A dual Swiss-German citizen and U.S. resident, Eric is based between Austin and Zürich.