By Chris Roush for Business North Carolina
Asheville-based Pine Gate Renewables has received a $650 million investment from two pension funds and an existing investor to expand its solar operations.
The money is coming from Generate Capital, the Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan and HESTA, an Australian pension fund for workers in the health and community services sector.
Pine Gate said the money will finance an incremental 3 gigawatts of clean energy infrastructure by 2025.
“This landmark transaction unlocks a new era of partnership and value creation at Pine Gate Renewables as we strive toward our mission to generate the power of tomorrow,” said Pine Gate CEO Ben Catt in a statement.
It’s the second investment in Pine Gate from San Francisco-based Generate Capital. In 2022, Generate Capital PBC invested $500 million in Pine Gate. The investment consists of $200 million in equity and a $300 million commitment to a long-term asset partnership for solar project financing.
“The new partnership with institutional investors illustrates the value of Generate’s one-stop-shop business model as it opens up new, innovative sources of financing for Pine Gate,” said Scott Jacobs, Generate’s co-founder and CEO, in a statement.
Founded in 2016, Pine Gate has previously closed more than $7 billion in project financing and capital investment. Pine Gate’s utility-scale solar operation operates more than 100 solar facilities accounting for more than 2 gigawatts of installed capacity. It has more than 30 gigawatts of projects in development.
Generate has raised more than $10 billion to invest in decarbonization since it started in 2014. It invests in and operates sustainable assets across six sectors — power, mobility, waste, green digital, water and agriculture, and industrial decarbonization.
The Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan manages more than $112 billion in assets that span multiple geographies and asset classes.
HESTA has more than 1 million members (around 80% of whom are women) and currently manages approximately $83 billion in assets.
The preceding article originally appeared on April 29, 2024 at the Business North Carolina’s website and is made available here for educational purposes only. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 106A-117 of the U.S. Copyright Law.
