Leyline Renewable Capital has provided loans to developers RAI Energy and Grid Connected Infrastructure (GCI) for solar and storage projects.
Leyline announced an undisclosed project development loan for RAI yesterday (27 June), which will go towards RAI’s pipeline of grid-scale solar and solar-plus-storage projects in the Western Energy Coordinating Council (WECC) market over the coming four years.
WECC covers all 14 western US states including California, the Canadian provinces of Alberta and British Columbia, and the north tip of the Mexican state of Baja California.
Todd Kice, Managing Director of Originations at Leyline, commented: “The low-hanging fruit in our industry has been picked, so to speak, and utility-scale projects are going to get harder to complete in the years to come.”
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“You need experience as well as resilience to be successful; (RAI CEO) Mohammed (Alrai) has the creativity and the tenacity to work through the unexpected issues that inevitably arise and get projects done.”
The announcement comes a fortnight after Leyline agreed to provide Grid Connected Infrastructure (GCI) a US$22.5 million non-dilutive loan facility for utility-scale battery energy storage system (BESS) projects across the US. GCI has the goal of developing 1GW of BESS over the coming four years.
The financing will allow GCI CEO Mitch Bauer to acquire quickly key real estate assets and build an expert development team over the next two years, Leyline said. GCI intends to launch six projects over the next six months in markets including CAISO (California), NYISO (New York state), and ERCOT (Texas).
Leyline said its loans are short-term 3-5 year loans which serve as a useful alternative to early-stage private equity investment.
In May, Leyline provided US$30 million to Accelergen Energy, also for solar and storage projects in the US, covered by our sister site PV Tech.
Project announcements and financing deals have picked up in the US over the past few weeks ever since the IRS provided further guidance on the domestic content adder, and transferability and direct pay aspects of the investment tax credit (ITC).
