Pine Gate Renewables, a solar project developer, secured a $650 million investment from Generate Capital, the Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan (HOOPP), and HESTA. The transaction extends Generate Capital’s existing partnership with Pine Gate and brings new institutional investors to the solar developer’s platform.
The investment aims to expedite Pine Gate’s efforts as a developer, owner, and operator of clean energy projects and facilitate the financing of an additional three gigawatts (GW) of clean energy infrastructure by 2025.
According to the company, its operational fleet includes over 100 solar facilities accounting for more than two gigawatts (GW) of installed capacity, and it has over 30 GW of projects in development.
“The new partnership with institutional investors illustrates the value of Generate’s one-stop-shop business model as it opens up new, innovative sources of financing for Pine Gate while providing values- and vision-aligned institutional investors the opportunity to capitalize on the clean energy transition,” said Scott Jacobs, Generate Capital’s CEO and Co-Founder.
Earlier this year, Pine Gate closed a $150 million credit facility with global investment firm Carlyle. The transaction closed in the fourth quarter of 2023. The credit facility will be used to accelerate construction activities for Pine Gate’s growing development pipeline and support a subset of its 2.2 GW operating portfolio. The facility currently supports projects across the Southeast and in ERCOT and is expected to finance a diverse set of projects over time.
According to Mercom’s Q1 2024 Solar Funding and M&A report, global VC funding for the solar sector in Q1 2024 came to $406 million in 13 deals, an 81% decline YoY compared to $2.1 billion raised in 18 deals in Q1 2023. Funding declined 68% QoQ compared to the $1.3 billion raised in 19 deals in Q4 2023.
