Funding and M&A Roundup: Partners Group to Acquire Community Solar, Battery Storage Firm

Canadian Solar secures $59 million from Santander to support growth in project development in EMEA

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From: Mercom Capital Group

Global private markets firm Partners Group has agreed to acquire a controlling equity stake in Dimension Renewable Energy (Dimension), a distributed energy platform focusing on community solar and battery storage across the U.S. Dimension is focused on originating, developing, financing, and operating community solar and battery storage facilities across the U.S. and has developed a deep pipeline of over 180 projects totaling over 800 MWs of solar capacity, and over 800 MWh of battery storage across eight states.

Distributed solar company, Fourth Partner Energy, has raised $125 million in equity funding. Norwegian Investment Fund Norfund has brought in $100 million while existing shareholder the Rise Fund has invested $25 million. The Rise Fund is a global impact investment fund managed by TPG (formerly Texas Pacific Group).

Canadian Solar a vertically integrated manufacturer of silicon ingots, wafers, and PV cells and modules secured a €50M (~$59.2M) bilateral corporate facility with Banco Santander. The facility will support growth at Canadian Solar’s Global Energy business as it executes and expands on its project development pipeline in Europe, Middle East, and Africa, or the EMEA region, and further diversifies the Company’s sources of financing. The new facility is composed of a term loan and a revolving credit facility of equal amounts.

ION Energy, an energy-tech startup building advanced electronics and software platforms for new energy enterprises, announced it had raised $3.6 million in Pre-Series A funding. The round was raised from Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund and joined by Silicon Valley-based Climate Capital, early-stage investor YourNest Venture Capital, Riso Capital, Venture Catalysts, and other angel investors.

Schneider Electric, an energy management and automation services provider, announced that it had completed the transaction to purchase a controlling stake in Operation Technology (ETAP), an energy management & engineering solutions provider. ETAP will be consolidated within the Energy Management business. The ETAP investment completes Schneider’s existing software portfolio for electric power systems. Its technology will be integrated with Schneider’s unique cloud-based platform to design and operate mission-critical power systems using vendor-agnostic software-driven modeling, design, real-time predictive simulation, and operation solutions.

Switzerland-based solar module manufacturer Meyer Burger has launched a private placement of up to 160 million new shares and a private placement of around €125 million (~$148.47 million) green convertible bonds. The shares will have a nominal value of CHF0.05 (~$0.054) per share. Due 2027, the bonds will be issued through the firm’s German subsidiary MBT Systems. The bonds will be guaranteed by Meyer Burger and convertible into shares of Meyer Burger.

1366 Technologies and Hunt Perovskite Technologies announced that they had merged their businesses. The merger combines two technologies – 1366’s Direct Wafer process and HPT’s printed perovskite solar PV technology – to bring to market powerful tandem modules to lead the rapidly growing solar industry. The newly combined company, called CubicPV, will also receive $25 million in funding from Hunt Energy Enterprises (HEE), First Solar, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, and others. HEE will join the Board of Directors.

Cubico Sustainable Investments (Cubico), a global investor in renewable energy, has completed the acquisition of the remaining minority shareholding of Grupo T-Solar from MEAG. This acquisition makes Cubico the sole owner of the entire Grupo T-Solar platform, which comprises 274 MW of operational assets and a significant development pipeline across Spain and Italy.

FTC Solar, a global provider of solar tracker systems, announced that it had received a net payout of approximately $22 million in connection with the sale of its minority investment position in Dimension Energy, with the potential to receive an additional payout of up to around $14 million through an earn-out structure.

Enlight Renewable Energy, a global renewables IPP and developer, announced a definitive agreement to acquire U.S. solar and storage developer Clenera at an enterprise value of up to $433 million. Through a wholly-owned U.S. subsidiary, Enlight will acquire 90% of Clenera’s shares, while Clenera’s founders, Jason Ellsworth and Adam Pishl, will retain 10% of Clenera’s shares. The acquisition consideration will be divided between upfront payments of $158 million and future performance-based payments.

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.

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