Three solar PV project stories from the US: developers Arevon and Doral Renewables have both secured financing for projects in the state of Indiana, and engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) firm Mill Creek Renewables has commissioned a 220MW site—which it calls the “largest” in Pennsylvania—for US utility AES.
Arevon bags US$300 million transferability financing
US independent power producer (IPP) Arevon has closed US$299 million in debt financing to support the construction of two solar PV plants in the US state of Indiana.
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The 192MW Ratts 1 project and the 60MW Heirloom project are both situated in Pike County, Indiana and will both be fully operational by the end of Q3 2025. Both sites are already contracted under long-term offtake agreements; Ratts 1 with Indiana Municipal Power Agency and Heirloom with social media giant Meta.
Crédit Agricole, Commerzbank, Bank of America, and Lloyds Bank provided the financing through a $119 million construction-to-term loan, a $159 million tax equity and tax credit bridge loan, and a $21 million letter of credit facility.
Arevon said that the transaction made use of the Inflation Reduction Act’s (IRA) tax credit transferability scheme, which it said enabled the project to benefit from future tax credit transfers closer to the date of commercial operations.
This is not the first time Arevon has availed itself of the IRA’s transferability provisions, which allow companies and other tax entities to sell their Production or Investment Tax Credits for cash. In November, the company completed one of the first credit transferability transactions for the 157MW/150MW Viking solar-plus-storage project in California.
When the Department of Treasury released the initial guidance for credit transferability in June 2023, it said the scheme would open the IRA’s tax benefits up to a broader range of smaller companies and organisations. Indeed, PV Tech Premium heard in July that the tax credit transferability market “blows the doors open” for solar PV financing in the US.
“While the IRA’s tax credit transfer mechanism offers a broad range of debt and equity options, pioneering new financing structures present unique challenges,” said Denise Tait, chief investment officer at Arevon. “This financing package is cutting-edge and complex, as well as a major milestone, as it is Arevon’s first deal structured with an uncommitted tax equity and tax credit transfer bridge takeout.”
Arevon has invested heavily in Indiana solar projects. In addition to Ratts 1 and Heirloom—Arevon started construction at the former site last week—the company has also broken ground on the 251MW Gibson solar project in Gibson County.
Doral Renewables progresses with Mammoth project
Elsewhere in the state, Doral Renewables has secured a financing package to execute the remaining stages of its Mammoth Solar project in northern Indiana.
Once complete, the aptly-named Mammoth project will have over 1.5GW of solar PV generation capacity, most of which will be paired with agrivoltaics practices, such as crop cultivation and livestock grazing.
The money will support the completion of the three outstanding portions of the Mammoth project, each of which consists of 300MW of PV. This follows the commissioning of the first, 400MW stage of the Mammoth project earlier this summer. The three remaining phases have been signed onto an EPC contract with US construction company Bechtel.
KeyBanc Capital Markets, HSBC and Santander Corporate & Investment Banking arranged the US$285 million financing, which consists of a US$200 million construction loan facility and US$85 million of additional support via letters of credit.
Doral Renewables CFO, Evan Speece, said that this deal would act as a “bridge to the eventual permanent construction financing.”
Earlier this year, Doral closed a US$400 million minority equity investment with Dutch pension fund APG, which it said would help it to build out its roughly 13GW US renewable energy project pipeline.
Mill Creek completes ‘largest’ PV project in Pennsylvania
EPC Mill Creek Renewables has completed construction and begun commercial operations at the “largest” solar PV project in Pennsylvania.
Great Cove Solar, which spreads across Franklin and Fulton Counties, is a 22MW capacity project comprised of over 485,000 solar modules. The site is owned by US utility AES and has a power purchase agreement (PPA) in place with the University of Pennsylvania.
Great Cove is one of the most significant pieces of AES’ renewable energy profile. In its financial year 2023 results, the utility said it had doubled its renewable energy additions over the year to 3.5GW, the largest portion of which was taken up by solar PV capacity.
