Duke Energy Renewables, a subsidiary of Duke Energy, has closed a preferred tax equity funding of $109.4 million from Goldman Sachs’ Alternative Energy Investing Group. This investment will be used to implement around 75 MW of solar and solar with energy storage projects over an 18-months period. These projects will be developed and constructed by Duke Energy Renewables’ subsidiary REC Solar.
The planned portfolio will feature a diverse range of projects including ground-mounted, rooftop commercial and industrial projects, as well as community solar projects spread across several different states including Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Massachusetts and Texas. The portfolio will be a mix of behind-the-meter and utility-scale installations that will provide power to a wide range of private sector and public sector customers through long-term power purchase agreements.
Goldman Sachs’s investment structure is tailored to finance large, distributed renewable power portfolios. This method of monetizing both cash and tax attributes generated by the projects will allow Duke Energy Renewables to free up capital and continue to invest in its distributed generation portfolio. Duke Energy Renewables is a nonregulated unit of Duke Energy and operates a total of 3,000 MW of wind and solar generation facilities across the United States.
For this financing round, NextPower Capital acted as the financial advisor to Duke Energy Renewables and REC Solar. Meanwhile, Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP and O’Melveny & Myers LLP were the transaction legal counsels for Duke Energy Renewables and Goldman Sachs, respectively.