ENGIE North America’s Distributed Solar Team Closes Investment From Goldman Sachs
November 20,2018
ENGIE North America’s Distributed Solar team announced the closing of an investment from Goldman Sachs’ Alternative Energy Investing Group into a partnership managed by ENGIE.
The financing structure will allow the deployment of up to 75 MW of distributed solar and distributed solar plus battery systems across multiple states in the U.S., including California, Nevada, Minnesota, Illinois, Texas, New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts.
ENGIE stated, "The partnership is unique as Goldman Sachs’ investment provides both the scale and benefits of what is typically provided by separate investments from tax equity, debt, and sponsor equity investors. It also provides ENGIE with a simplified approach to raising long-term capital for the development and growth of its U.S. distributed solar platform. ENGIE will retain an ownership interest in the portfolio, and will construct, manage, and operate the assets."
The portfolio comprises behind-the-meter installations that will provide power to commercial and municipal customers, and small-scale front-of-the-meter projects with rural electric cooperatives under previously signed long-term Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs).
The investment will be deployed over a period of twelve months, and some projects will begin to provide solar power to the customers under these PPAs immediately. The projects were developed and completed by ENGIE North America’s Distributed Solar and U.S.-based Services teams