From: Mercom Capital Group

Exeger, the Sweden-based solar cell manufacturer, secured $38 million in financing to start building its new solar cell factory in Stockholm, Sweden. This financing round includes debt financing of $12 million from Swedbank, which is partly underwritten by the Swedish Export Credit Agency under the guarantee of investment credits for companies with innovations. Swedish Export Credit Corporation issued a loan amounting to $8 million, which is partly underwritten by the European Investment Fund. The company has also secured $18 million through a directed share issue to Ilija Batljan Invest, bringing the total financing round to $38 million.

California-based utility-scale energy storage battery manufacturer ESS Technology has announced its merger with ACON S2 Acquisition Corp, a publicly traded special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). The collaboration has led it to become a publicly listed company. The business combination values the combined company at a $1.07 billion pro forma enterprise value. According to the announcement, the transaction will provide approximately $465 million of pro forma net cash to the combined company, assuming no redemptions by ACON S2 shareholders.

Macquarie Specialized and Asset Finance (Macquarie) – part of Macquarie’s Commodities and Global Markets Group – has successfully divested Cortex Metering Solutions, a U.K. industrial and commercial smart meter portfolio, to Energy Assets Group. Macquarie Capital (Europe) acted as financial advisor and Allen & Overy as legal advisor to Macquarie Specialized and Asset Finance on the transaction. Evercore acted as sole financial advisor and Clifford Chance as legal advisor to Energy Assets on the transaction.

Repsol, a Spanish energy and petrochemical company, agreed to buy a 40% stake in Hecate Energy, developer, owner, and operator of renewable power projects and storage solutions in North America, to give the Spanish energy company a platform to expand in the growing U.S. renewable energy market, three people familiar with the matter said. Hecate Energy manages more than 20 solar projects that are either operating or at late development stages in countries like the U.S., Canada, and Jordan.

Dominion Energy, a power and energy company, entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Birdseye Renewable Energy, a utility-scale solar developer. As part of Dominion Energy, Birdseye will support the development of regulated and long-term contracted solar and storage projects. Onpeak Capital has served as the exclusive financial advisor to Birdseye.

424 Capital, an investment firm focusing primarily on healthcare and renewable energy spaces, completed the acquisition of QE Solar, a provider of operations and maintenance services for commercial, industrial, and utility-scale solar infrastructure as well as battery energy storage systems. The transaction provides additional investment capital to support the continued growth of QE Solar’s workforce nationwide and expand its capabilities in markets across the country.

SP Group, a Singapore-based utility and sustainable energy solutions provider, and Jinko Power, a solar panel manufacturer, signed a joint venture (JV) agreement to acquire and invest in renewable energy assets and develop integrated energy solutions in China. The JV will be 60% owned by SP Group and 40% by Jinko Power. The JV will acquire an initial 102 MW of rooftop solar assets from Jinko Power in the Yangtze River Delta region that includes Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shanghai.

Starsight Energy, a commercial & industrial (C&I) solar power supplier, has announced its acquisition of a 50% stake in the Premier Solar Group’s C&I business of East African operations. The transaction will see the creation of Starsight Premier Energy Group that will offer sustainable power and cooling-as-a-service and battery storage solutions to C&I clients in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Rwanda.

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.