The role of a project developer21 Nov 2025 09:32
To avoid any confusion, here is a summary of the role of a project developer.
A project developer acts as the orchestrator of a project by assembling all commercial, technical, regulatory, and financial aspects. The developerβs role is also to secure public support, and ultimately to structure a project capable of attracting debt and equity funding and to deliver the project into operation.
For large-scale infrastructure projects, there are usually many different organisations involved. The project developer will typically set up a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) to own the project. The developer will then coordinate all constituent parts together to enable project delivery.
SPVs can have different ownership structures but usually take the shape of a joint venture. In a project like the one at hand, this could comprise, for example, the energy company who intends to sink their excess power, the cavern owners/operator and oftentimes also the government itself, if considered critical energy infrastructure.
The contractual party to the supplier (i.e. ITM) is not the project developer, but the respective project SPV composed of usually large-scale corporates involved in plant operation.