US renewable energy developer Pivot Energy has closed a US$500 million bilateral corporate credit facility to further solar PV and battery energy storage system (BESS) deployments.
The financing was provided by US-headquartered Nuveen Energy Infrastructure Capital and takes the form of a three-year facility. While Pivot did not specify which projects would receive investment through the facility, it noted that the finance would be used to support “late-stage project development and equipment procurement” for solar PV and BESS projects “where it is needed most,” such as areas suffering from constrained grid infrastructure.
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“This is the most transformational financing in Pivot’s history,” said Tom Hunt, CEO of Pivot Energy, of the Nuveen investment. “It reflects how far we’ve come, from an early-stage developer to an established IPP that owns and operates the assets we build.”
The news follows a number of other investments into Pivot’s community solar portfolio, including deals for a 51-project portfolio across six US states earlier this month and a US$225 million investment into a 60-project solar portfolio.
Distributed solar projects have often been touted as a solution to meet electricity demand without reliance on conventional grid infrastructure; last year, PV Tech Premium heard of the potential for distributed solar-plus-storage, in particular, to improve Europe’s energy resilience in lieu of committing to costly and lengthy grid investments.
Pivot has advanced a number of community solar projects this year. In January, the company started commercial operation on three community solar projects in Illinois with a combined capacity of 13.5MW, and plans to have more than 1GW of solar PV and more than 700MWh of batteries in operation by the end of 2029.
Earlier this year, community solar trade association the Coalition for Community Solar Access (CCSA) merged with national organisation Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), and PV Tech Premium heard from Pivot’s vice president of policy John Bernhardt that there is “a lot of natural overlap” between the organisations.
