Greenbacker Renewable Energy, an owner, and operator of sustainable infrastructure and energy efficiency projects, through a wholly-owned subsidiary, has acquired three pre-operational, utility-scale solar projects with the capacity of 50 MW located in Greene County, New York, from Hecate Energy, a U.S.-based PV solar and battery storage project developer.
The projects are expected to reach commercial operation by 2023 powering up 9,500 homes annually. All the projects have secured a long-term contract with an investment-grade off-taker, which will provide reliable long-term revenue to Greenbacker.
The acquisition represents Greenbacker’s second closed transaction with Hecate. Greenbacker also has signed agreements with Hecate to develop various additional solar projects in New York, a pipeline of around hundreds of megawatts of clean energy over the next few years.
Previously, Greenbacker acquired two 20 MW utility-scale solar projects (Albany 1 and Albany 2) from the developer; both are slated to enter commercial development in late 2022.
Greenbacker’s sustainable infrastructure projects comprise over 2.6 GW of generating capacity (including the three Greene projects and other assets that are to be constructed). Since 2016, Greenbacker has produced more than 3.7 million megawatt-hours of clean energy, reducing nearly 2.7 million metric tons of carbon.
Recently, Greenbacker entered into a senior credit agreement of $76.3 million with joint lead arrangers Fifth Third Bank, National Association, and PNC Capital Markets. Greenbacker will use the credit facility to expand its Celadon portfolio of solar projects, comprising 36 pre-operational and operational projects.
According to Mercom’s recently published Q1 2022 solar funding and M&A report, 23 GW of large-scale solar projects were acquired in Q1 2022 compared to 13.1 GW in Q4 2021.
