Renewable energy company Soltage and Basalt announced Thursday that they have closed an investment on a nine-project, 57MW solar project portfolio in North Carolina.
This stands as the second portfolio investment announced as part of a US$140 million equity capital partnership between Soltage and Basalt launched in place Q4 2016. Construction on the portfolio is set to begin in May 2017.
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The nine greenfield utility-scale PV projects will be located across seven communities in the eastern half of North Carolina, which will range in size from 3MW to 7MW. Project offtakers include Duke Energy and Dominion Energy.
The portfolio will generate roughly 85,000 MWh of clean energy annually and will offset 132 million pounds of carbon dioxide.
Jesse Grossman, Soltage co-founder and CEO, said: “Utilities across the country are continuing to expand their investments in solar power to lock in stable long-term power prices while reducing electricity generation emissions. Solar projects like these empower North Carolina to provide the competitive prices and clean power that both corporate and residential customers are increasingly seeking from power utilities.”
As part of this investment partnership, Soltage will serve as the power plant operator selling the electricity to the utilities through Public Utilities Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA) contracting. Soltage acquired the projects from Cypress Creek Renewables, who will be providing engineering, procurement, and construction services for all nine projects.
Rob Gregor, managing partner of Basalt Infrastructure Partners, said: “Basalt is delighted to be making significant progress in building a well-diversified portfolio of solar farms, which will now include projects in North Carolina that have long-term power purchase agreements with investment-grade off-takers in place. It is a testament to the importance of partnering with industry-leading developers that have longstanding relationships providing a robust and proven proprietary channel of investment origination.”