Morning Brief: Titan 1 breaks ground, Blackstone refinances Altus for $850 million

Titan 1 breaks ground: Sunpin Solar has held a groundbreaking to mark the beginning of construction on the company’s 98 MW Titan 1 solar project in Ocotillo Wells, California. What’s more is that Sunpin estimates that the project will be completed and operational before the end of the year. This is Sunpin’s second utility-scale solar installation in the state of California, with the other one being the 96 MW ColGreen North Shore solar project in Riverside County. Source: Sunpin Solar

Altus Power and Blackstone complete $850 million in debt financing: Altus Power America announced  that Blackstone, through its GSO Capital Partners and Blackstone Insurance Solutions groups, has led a recapitalization with $850 million of funded and committed capital to refinance the existing capital structure and fund future development. The recapitalization consists of preferred and minority equity and investment grade-rated debt financing provided by GSO and a BIS-led consortium, respectively, and a construction-to-term loan facility from a syndicate of commercial banks, providing Altus Power with sufficient capital to grow its portfolio to over $1 billion of commercial and industrial solar assets. Source: Altus Power

Goldman Sachs to finance $200 million Loanpal loans: The partnership between Loanpal, a residential solar loan provider and Goldman Sachs has been expanded, as Goldman Sachs has agreed to finance an additional $200 million in residential solar loans. Goldman Sach’s total investment in Loanpal now sits at $635 million. Loanpal is currently lending $200M/month in residential solar loans and claims to be responsible for more than 30% of all new residential solar loans in the U.S. Source: Loanpal

Swiss RE and kWh analytics collaborate to accelerate solar adoption: “kWh Analytics and Swiss Re Corporate Solutions (SRCS) today announced an agreement to accelerate the growth of solar energy. The Solar Revenue Put was created by kWh Analytics to encourage the development of clean, low-cost solar energy by driving down investment risk. SRCS underwrites the product, and this collaboration officially marks the insurer’s principal risk taking in the North American solar market, further building on its landmark 2018 thermal coal commitment to reduce worldwide greenhouse gas emissions… kWh Analytics developed the Solar Revenue Put informed by the performance history of 300,000 solar power plants. This partnership reflects an emerging insurance industry trend wherein new categories of insurance products are enabled through collaboration between innovative startups and experienced insurers.” Source: kWh Analytics

Voltus awarded 50 MW demand response: “Voltus, Inc. has won the right to deliver nearly 50 MW of new demand response resources to the California Independent System Operator under its demand response auction mechanism (DRAM) in the Pacific Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison regions, making Voltus the largest winner in the auction… Matt Plante, President of Voltus said: “Our California team and our customers are eager to deliver hundreds of new MW of demand response in the years to come to help close this gap.” Source: Voltus

SERES transitions battery division to subsidiary: As of the new year, SERES, a an automotive technology company has split, turning it’s Battery Technology division into TeraWatt Technology. TeraWatt Technology will look to develop the same solid-state battery technologies that it was working on while still a division of SERES. Source: SERES