Carlyle, a global investment firm acquired majority stake in Aspen Power Partners, a distributed generation platform focused on solar and storage assets across the U.S. for $350 million. The investment supports Aspen’s organic and acquisition-driven growth strategy targeting the community, multifamily, and commercial & industrial solar and storage markets.
Carlyle Group has about $15 billion in assets under management spread across power, energy, renewable energy sectors, and other sectors. Carlyle said its investment would fund the expansion of Aspen Power, which is planning to acquire renewable energy projects across the United States. Texas-based Aspen Power had agreed in September to acquire solar power developer Safari Energy from electricity giant PPL Corporation.
With Carlyle’s investment and the close of the Safari acquisition, Aspen is on track to achieve a gigawatt scale by mid-decade.
“We are thrilled to support Aspen at this inflection point and believe the platform is well-positioned to benefit from the transformational shift we see in decarbonizing the economy,” said J.B. Oldenburg, Managing Director of the Renewable and Sustainable Energy team at Carlyle. “Our investment in Aspen is a commitment to accelerating the widespread accessibility and availability of solar and storage, which we believe is accretive to our portfolio by supporting this decade’s ambitious renewable energy and climate change targets.”
“During this critical climate decade, as demand for solar, storage and electric vehicle charging continues to expand, the Carlyle investment and Safari transaction provide a clear path forward for our team to execute a step-change in the scale of our impact,” said Jackson Lehr, Aspen Co-Founder, and CFO.
According to Mercom’s recently published 9M and Q3 Solar Funding and M&A Report, in 9M 2022, There were 90 solar M&A transactions compared to 83 transactions in 9M 2021. AMPYR Solar Europe, a solar project developer, and independent power producer recently acquired SolarEnergyWork’s solar business in the Netherlands. The acquisition includes an asset pipeline of 100 MW ready-to-build and 650 MW under-development assets.
