The evolving art of the clean energy deal

  • June 6, 2018
  • /
  • Gary Goldman

When I joined CleanCapital as the Head of Origination, I was excited about the company’s approach to leveraging technology and data to streamline the clean energy finance process. I have spent most of my career navigating the cumbersome transaction process of structuring and cobbling together financing sources across a variety of renewable energy asset classes including wind, solar, biomass and fuel cells. The opportunity to adapt FinTech tools and skills to the renewable energy market is an obvious and natural progression for the industry. CleanCapital demonstrated that they are ahead of the pack and I am pleased to be part of it.

I joined the CleanCapital team to head up their effort with the identification of solar power acquisitions and help expand market opportunities in projects that are under development as well as additional renewable energy and clean infrastructure asset classes.

Leveraging technology and data to identify assets

Last week we announced the acquisition of our second solar portfolio in just 30 days. The portfolio of two operating solar projects, acquired from G&S; Solar, are located in Massachusetts and leverage the $250 million equity partnership with CarVal Investors. Earlier in May, we announced the acquisition of  a 14.23MW portfolio of solar assets from X-Elio. In addition to working with terrific developer partners, these purchases are significant. They demonstrate our team’s ability to leverage our proprietary technology to implement an efficient diligence process to underwrite complex opportunities and turn them into investment ready assets.

Two examples of where CleanCapital leveraged FinTech tools in these transactions include, the use of our proprietary platform that BOTH facilitated data transfer and diligence from the sellers, as we well as comprehensive and ease of underwriting by our investor partners. This efficient use of technology is helping us to close transactions quickly and thereby drive down the cost of capital.

This competitive advantage will continue to work for us. We look forward to talking with you about how we can work together and apply that to more opportunities.

The next phase of clean energy origination

This is a marked departure from the status quo when it comes to origination.  This latest announcement brings CleanCapital’s total to nearly $150m of acquired operating solar assets. It’s an exciting year for our team as we continue to change the paradigm for clean energy finance. Despite the historic growth across the industry, the flow of capital within the space remains largely stagnant. In the last 30 days I’ve been able to witness just how significantly technology solutions can address these challenges.

Growing our partnership with Carval Investors

The acquisition of this portfolio continues to leverage our new partnership with CarVal Investors. Leveraging our proprietary platform and capital partnerships, the CleanCapital team continues to bring liquidity to a historically capital inefficient clean energy marketplace.

Learn more about the new partnership to acquire up to $1 billion in clean energy assets