Engie North America finds investor for 70-MW solar project pipeline

ENGIE North America and Hannon Armstrong, climate change solutions investor, announce a new partnership to jointly invest in a DG portfolio of solar and solar + storage assets located across the United States.

The portfolio is comprised of a diversified set of community solar and commercial and industrial ground-mounted, carport and rooftop solar and solar + storage projects (around 70 MW in total) located across the United States, including Massachusetts, Illinois, Vermont, California, Texas and Arizona.

“ENGIE is pleased to partner with Hannon Armstrong on this portfolio, which further demonstrates ENGIE’s leadership and strong commitment to climate action goals towards its clients. This new partnership reinforces the ambitions of our organizations,” said Gwenaëlle Avice-Huet, executive VP in charge of the Renewable and Hydrogen Business Units France, responsible for the Global Renewable Business Line and CEO of the North America Business Unit. “This program signals further forward momentum as we work alongside our customers towards a carbon-neutral future.”

The agreement will let ENGIE rely on committed capital by Hannon Armstrong through December 31, 2021 to finance DG assets across the United States. ENGIE will retain partial ownership and provide development, construction, operational, asset management and administrative services. Hannon Armstrong will provide capital to ENGIE through a structure that will bring efficiency to a forward flow of projects, leveraging tax equity financing through an upper-tier arrangement with Morgan Stanley.

Hannon Armstrong’s collaboration with Morgan Stanley on this portfolio represents an expansion of the firms’ relationship in recognition of Morgan Stanley becoming the first U.S. bank to commit to disclosing portfolio greenhouse gas emissions and backing the push toward unified measurement of financed emissions via the Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials.

“We are delighted to expand our programmatic relationship with ENGIE with this latest agreement,” said Jeffrey W. Eckel, Hannon Armstrong Chairman and CEO. “This partnership highlights one of the key strengths of our historic core value proposition to clients of executing on scalable investment solutions for smaller, distributed clean energy projects that are essential to a climate-positive future.”

Distributed generation represents an important piece of ENGIE’s U.S. solar + storage market strategy as it represents a sizable share of the overall non-residential solar + storage market. Distributed clean energy generation, including the community solar projects in the portfolio, foster access to renewable energy and is a key component of the clean energy targets and ambitions of cities, communities, corporate and utility customers. ENGIE currently owns and operates approximately 300 MW of DG solar assets.

News item from ENGIE North America

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Original Source: https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2020/12/engie-north-america-finds-investor-for-solar-project-pipeline/