US investor Excelsior Energy Capital has sold a 38-project solar-plus-storage portfolio with a combined capacity of 89MW to the renewables arm of US investment manager BlackRock.
The projects form part of a fund established by Excelsior in 2017 that has raised over US$500 million of investment to support solar, wind and storage projects across 10 US states.
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The portfolio sold to BlackRock combines a mix of solar and solar-plus-storage projects, all of which are in commercial operation. They will now be managed through BlackRock’s Evergreen Infrastructure Partners Fund, an equity fund focused on energy transition investments in North America and Europe.
“We believe this diversified portfolio of long-term contracted commercial and industrial solar and storage projects represents an attractive platform investment for the core, open-ended Evergreen fund,” said James Berner, managing director and head of the Americas for BlackRock’s Evergreen Infrastructure Partners Fund.
UK-based law firm Akin Gump advised Excelsior on the deal, alongside Morgan Stanley and KeyBanc Capital Markets. BlackRock was advised by Latham & Watkins, KPMG, Natural Power and Thorndike Landing.
While the investors did not specify the amount of money involved in the deal, the transaction is BlackRock’s latest investment into the solar sector. Earlier this year, the company’s Climate Infrastructre business invested US$500 million into Canadian Solar subsidiary Recurrent Energy, to support its construction of a 26GW pipeline of solar projects.
Buy-in from heavyweight investors such as BlackRock, which has some US$10 trillion of assets under management, will be vital to supporting the energy transition. Earlier this year, Bloomberg New Energy Finance noted that the world invested a record US$1.8 trillion in energy transition projects in 2023, but that this figure would need to almost triple to US$48.4 trillion a year until the end of 2030.
PV Tech’s publisher Solar Media will host the Renewable Energy Revenues USA event from 10-11 April in Dallas, Texas. Speakers will discuss the business case for renewable power and de-risking renewable energy transactions. Visit the site for more information.
