From: Mercom Capital Group

BlackRock Real Assets, an investment banking firm, has signed an agreement to acquire an undisclosed amount of equity stake in a South Korean solar aggregator and operator, Brite Energy Partners. The firm aims to inject more than $100 million capital over time to fund the acquisition and construction of solar assets of over 350 MW in power generation capacity. All projects developed and acquired by Brite Energy Partners are expected to be fully contracted under 20-year terms with Korean firms, including state-owned Korea Electric Power subsidiaries.

German solar project developer 7C Solarparken AG has raised €25.8 million (~$30.37 million) in gross proceeds as part of a share issue. In all, 6.94 million new shares will be sold to institutional investors in Germany and other European countries as part of an accelerated book-building process. The issue proceeds from the capital increase will be used to expand the company’s capacity to 500 MW. The group owns 400 MW systems. In addition, it should now be possible to successfully implement the expansion through the capital increase by the end of 2022 instead of the end of 2023. The transaction was supported by MM Warburg and Hauck & Aufhauser.

U.S.-based solar energy company Nexamp has secured $680 million in funding, including $440 million of debt financing and a $240 million equity investment led by Generate Capital. Nexamp provides clean energy access to approximately 40,000 customers across ten states in the U.S. The funding raised will be utilized to expand its presence in new markets. It will also use the funding to develop additional retail solutions. The company said Marathon Capital, an independent investment bank, facilitated the transaction.

goEgoNetwork, an electric vehicle (EV) charging solutions provider, has raised $2 million in seed funding to expand its electric charging network. Rishi Bagla, Chairman of Bagla Group, an auto component manufacturer, and Olivier Guillaumond, Head of Global Innovation Labs and Fintech at ING Bank, funded the seed round.

BlackRock’s real estate and infrastructure unit have acquired National Renewable Solutions (NRS), utility-scale wind and solar developer in the U.S. The asset manager’s BlackRock Real Assets now owns 100% of NRS and will operate the company’s current project development pipeline of over 3.5 GW of assets in New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, and Nevada, BlackRock said. The acquisition price was not disclosed.

Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, a manufacturer of electrical and electronic products, announced that its U.S. subsidiary Mitsubishi Electric Power Products (MEPPI), has agreed to acquire U.K.-based Smarter Grid Solutions (SGS). SGS is a leading global provider of distributed energy resources (DER) management software for power distribution utilities and DER operators.

Ample, a developer of swappable electric vehicle (EV) batteries, has raised $160 million in a new funding round. The Series C round brings to $230 million the total raised by the company, which plans to expand testing and deployment to New York City, then Madrid, and Singapore.

Hamburg-based wind and solar park operator Encavis signed a sustainable revolving credit facilities agreement under the syndicate leadership of its long-standing banking partner Commerzbank. The Sustainable Revolving Credit Facilities Agreement with a volume of €125 million (~$147 million) is unsecured financing with a term of three years with two extension options for a further year each. The other lenders in the consortium are Bayerische Landesbank, Cooperatieve Rabobank, Landesbank Baden-Wurttemberg and DZ Bank.

For reports and trackers on funding and M&A transactions in solar, energy storage, smart grid, and efficiency sectors, click here.

Read last week’s funding roundup.