Glossary
Definitions of the terms used in environmental due diligence, permitting, and project scheduling for renewable energy. Most are standard across the industry; a few describe how Spectivon organizes this work specifically, noted as such. See Features for how Spectivon uses them.
- Baseline
- A frozen snapshot of a schedule’s planned dates, used as the fixed reference that later dates are compared against.
- Calendar days
- Every day counts, weekends and holidays included, used for a lag that waits on an outside party, such as an agency review.
- Chunk
- A short passage of extracted document text, small enough to search and cite to a specific page.
- Clean result
- An explicit confirmation that an expected document type was reviewed and produced no findings, distinct from a document that was never scanned.
- Closing condition
- A requirement that must be satisfied before a transaction can close.
- Compliance calendar
- A dated view of the obligations attached to permits and approvals, such as reports, monitoring, renewals, and recurring requirements.
- Conditional finding
- A finding that only applies if a stated condition holds, kept attached to that condition rather than presented as unconditional.
- Conflict
- Two documents stating different facts about the same thing, surfaced rather than silently resolved.
- Consolidated
- Multiple findings describing the same underlying issue, merged into one.
- Coverage
- The share of a document, or of a project's documents, that has actually been scanned.
- Critical path
- The longest chain of dependent tasks through a project schedule. Tasks on it have no float, so a delay to any one of them delays the project finish.
- Data room
- The collection of documents a seller or sponsor provides, usually through a secure third-party site, so a buyer, lender, or insurer can evaluate a project or company. Buyers typically copy the files into their own systems for internal review.
- Deal gate
- A milestone in a project's development or transaction that a risk or obligation must clear, such as before PPA execution or before notice to proceed, configurable per organization.
- Deal phase
- The transaction stage a finding matters for: closing condition, pre-close, post-close, operational, or informational.
- Environmental due diligence
- The review of a project's environmental, permitting, and compliance documents before a transaction, to identify risks that affect price, structure, closing conditions, or post-close obligations.
- File Audit
- A Spectivon scan of a whole SharePoint project library that shows which expected studies each project has and flags files that look misplaced, duplicated, or draft only.
- Float
- How long a schedule task can slip without delaying the project finish. A task with zero float is on the critical path.
- Hygiene flag
- An automatic data quality signal on a document: possibly the wrong project, a draft or superseded version, or gen-tie scope.
- Indexing
- The process of extracting, chunking, and classifying every document in a project’s folders.
- Interconnection study
- A study by a grid operator or utility of what it takes to connect a project to the grid, typically a feasibility, system impact, or facilities study, with the upgrades and costs the project must bear.
- Link type
- How two schedule tasks relate: Finish-to-Start (FS, the default: the first must finish before the second starts), Start-to-Start (SS), Finish-to-Finish (FF), or Start-to-Finish (SF, rare). Standard notation from MS Project and Primavera P6.
- MMRP (Mitigation Monitoring and Reporting Program)
- A program adopted under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) that lists each mitigation measure adopted for a project, who is responsible for it, when it applies, and how compliance is verified.
- Monitor for Changes
- A daily automatic check that reindexes and rescans a project when its source documents change.
- Permit condition
- A requirement or restriction attached to a permit or approval that the holder must satisfy.
- Permit matrix
- A table of the permits a project needs or holds, with agency, status, dates, and conditions.
- Phase I environmental site assessment (ESA)
- A non-intrusive review of a property's past and present uses, records, interviews, and site conditions, typically conducted to the ASTM E1527 standard, to identify recognized environmental conditions that could indicate contamination. It does not involve sampling.
- Phase II environmental site assessment (ESA)
- An investigation that samples soil, groundwater, soil vapor, or other media to determine whether the recognized environmental conditions identified in a Phase I are actually present.
- Provenance
- The record of where a piece of extracted data came from: the exact document, page, and quoted wording.
- Reconciliation
- The review step where an extracted permit candidate is accepted, rejected, or resolved by a person before it enters the matrix.
- Recognized environmental condition (REC)
- In a Phase I ESA, the presence or likely presence of a hazardous substance or petroleum product on a property under conditions that indicate a release, a past release, or a material threat of a release.
- Record type
- Whether a tracked permit is an authorization the project must obtain, a deliverable it owes, or a supporting analysis document.
- Risk register
- A structured list of identified risks, each with a severity or rating, an owner, and an action, maintained through a project or transaction.
- Risk scan
- An automated pass that extracts, verifies, and ranks environmental and compliance findings from a project’s documents.
- Section 404 permit
- A Clean Water Act permit, issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, that authorizes the discharge of dredged or fill material into waters of the United States, including wetlands. It may be an individual permit or coverage under a general permit such as a nationwide permit.
- Section 7 consultation
- The Endangered Species Act process in which a federal agency consults with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service or NOAA Fisheries on an action it funds, authorizes, or carries out, to ensure the action is not likely to jeopardize a listed species or destroy or adversely modify its critical habitat. It typically concludes with a concurrence letter or a biological opinion.
- Severity
- A finding’s rated impact: high, medium, or low.
- Superseded
- A finding a rescan no longer reproduces; kept in history rather than deleted, and restored automatically if it reappears.
- SWPPP (Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan)
- A site-specific plan describing how a construction site will control erosion, sediment, and other stormwater pollution, required for coverage under a Clean Water Act construction stormwater permit (a federal or state general permit) once land disturbance reaches the permit's threshold, commonly one acre.
- Top risk
- One of the handful of findings a ranking pass surfaces as most important for a project.
- Trigger type
- How a permit condition’s due date is determined: a fixed date, a recurring requirement, a date relative to a milestone, or ongoing with no end date.
- Triage
- A ranking pass that reviews every finding together after a scan: severity, deal phase, deal gate, suppression, consolidation, and top risks.
- Variance
- How many days a schedule date has moved from its baseline; positive means later than planned.
- What Changed
- A Spectivon view of new and updated findings, permits, conditions, and documents since a chosen point in time.
- Working days
- Monday through Friday, minus an organization’s holidays, the default unit for task durations and most lags.