Macquarie closes ‘first of a kind’ financing on Powerpack 2 projects with AMS in California
A “first-of-its-kind” project financing deal will bring 50MW of Tesla Powerpacks online in California, Macquarie Capital, the investing and advisory arm of global finance corporation Macquarie Group has said.
Macquarie Capital said yesterday that it had closed a non-recourse project financing deal for an undisclosed sum with CIT Energy Finance, itself a division of CIT Bank. CIT Energy Finance, backed by the US$64 billion bank group, says it invests in “all asset classes across the energy sector”.
The deal is paying for the deployment of 50MW of energy storage behind-the-meter in grid-constrained locations of California investor-owned utility (IoU) Southern California Edison’s (SCE’s) service area in the West Los Angeles Basin. The projects will use Tesla’s commercial, industrial and utility-scale solution, Powerpack 2.
Macquarie acquired these projects from Advanced Microgrid Solutions (AMS) in August last year, and is now developing them jointly with AMS. They are expected to be completed and come online in a year to two years from now.
Latest financing carries on Macquarie and AMS’ partnership
Last July, Macquarie and Advanced Microgrid Solutions made a deal where Macquarie lent US$200 million worth of project financing to AMS, with analyst Raj Prabhu of Mercom Capital commenting at the time that it was the largest deal of its kind.
“Access to large amounts of project funds is a big differentiator for energy storage system integrators and this is a very positive development for Advanced Microgrid Solutions,” Prabhu said, with the US$200 million to be used to design, build and operate facilities at commercial, industrial and government sites.
