Dive Brief:
- Renewable energy developer CleanCapital announced on Monday it had secured $300 million in debt financing from France-based infrastructure investor Infranity.
- The debt financing, which closed through a holding company, will be used to expand CleanCapital’s portfolio of solar and distributed storage assets within the United States, according to a Jan. 13 press release.
- CleanCapital has an asset portfolio that spans over 350 projects with over 500 megawatts of capacity. The release said the developer has invested over $1.5 billion in clean energy, to date, and is the second-largest owner of U.S. commercial and community solar assets, according to Wood Mackenzie.
Dive Insight:
CleanCapital Co-founder and CEO Thomas Byrne told ESG Dive that the renewable energy developer first began seeking a corporate debt facility over a year ago. Byrne said he believed this was the right form of financing to give the company “the bandwidth it needed, the time it needed to continue to build out its core business.”
CleanCapital also has equity backing from Manulife, a Canadian multinational insurance and financial services company, and its U.S. division, Manulife John Hancock Investments. The company now has enough capital to build its business through 2028-29, Byrne said.
“There's no company in our segment, which is everything between residential and big utility, that is better capitalized than CleanCapital right now,” Byrne said. “And that is a luxury we have that we take very seriously.”
While CleanCapital historically acquired all of its assets, it moved into developing solar and batteries a few years ago, around 2022, according to its CEO. After a few “fits and starts,” CleanCapital has the wind at its back, Byrne said.
“We're now at the point where we're converting a lot of our development pipeline into actual operating assets, building them and actually getting them operating,” Byrne said. “Having the additional capital that we're getting from Infranity enables us to have even more time to do exactly that.”
For CleanCapital, the Infranity financing comes around a month after the renewable energy developer announced a $185 million privately placed debt issuance, where participants were described only as “top U.S. investors,” according to a December press release. That debt facility was designed to initially cover 156 projects with over 180 MW of capacity.
CleanCapital also acquired a 64-project solar portfolio from Greenbacker and a solar and storage portfolio from Pacifico Energy last year.
Clean Capital General Counsel and CFO Melinda Baglio said in the release that “this transaction further underscores our financial strength and our leadership in advancing scalable distributed generation assets.”
“The significant depth and breadth of capital we’ve secured enhances our ability to swiftly capitalize on emerging opportunities across the renewable energy sector."
