Greenbacker Renewable Energy, an owner, and operator of sustainable infrastructure and energy efficiency projects, has entered into a senior credit agreement of $76.3 million with joint lead arrangers Fifth Third Bank, National Association, and PNC Capital Markets.
Morgan Stanley Renewables served as a tax equity investor. Fifth Third Bank also served as an administrative agent.
Greenbacker will use the credit facility to expand its Celadon portfolio of solar projects, which comprises 36 pre-operational and operational projects.
The portfolio totals 107 MW of clean energy–generation capacity across 12 states and Washington, DC. All the portfolio’s projects either entered commercial operations in 2021 or will reach that stage in 2022. The projects all have long-term contracts in place to sell power to offtakers diversified across municipalities, utilities, co-ops, commercial and industrial customers, and universities. Approximately 93% of the portfolio’s offtakers have investment-grade credit ratings or are investment-grade equivalent.
Greenbacker was advised on the deal by the Stoel Rives law firm; Fifth Third Bank was advised by Moore & Van Allen.
Recently, Pivot Energy, a solar provider that develops, finances, builds, owns, and manages solar and energy storage projects, closed a $190 million financing facility to support a 90 MW multi-state portfolio of distributed solar generation projects. Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) led the debt facilities, which include a construction loan, tax equity bridge loan, and permanent loan, coupled with the tax equity investment from Foss.
According to Mercom’s Q1 2022 solar funding and M&A report, announced large-scale project funding in Q1 2022 came to $9.1 billion in 36 deals.
