Intersect Power closed eight separate transactions representing an aggregate of $2.6 billion of financing commitments to build and operate a six-project portfolio. The deals cover construction financing, tax equity, land financing, and portfolio-level term debt.
The closings will allow San Francisco-based Intersect to execute on 2.2 GWdc of late-stage solar projects with 1.4 GWh of storage that will be in operation by 2023. The portfolio includes Athos III, Oberon I, and Oberon II in California, and Lumina I, Radian, and Lumina II in Texas.
The arrangements include $1.4 billion of portfolio-level, term debt funding provided by HPS Investment Partners and Co-Investors, along with existing Intersect investors CarVal Investors, Generate and Climate Adaptive Infrastructure.
Bank of America and Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC served as co-lead arrangers and structuring agents on the term debt placement. The term financing facility incorporates structuring and pricing provisions designed to account for the higher proportion of uncontracted revenue in the portfolio. Proceeds from the term facility will support both construction and operation of the portfolio.
The roughly $800 million in construction financing will fund construction of Intersect’s 310 MWdc + 453 MWh BESS Athos III Project in Riverside County, California, east of Los Angeles, and 415 MWdc Radian Project in Brown County, Texas, southwest of Fort Worth.
The five-lender financing was led by co-coordinating lead arrangers, MUFG and Santander Bank, N.A. The group also included KeyBanc Capital Markets, CoBank, and Helaba as Joint Lead Arrangers. The Athos III and Radian projects are under construction and will come online in late 2022.
Intersect also lined up roughly $400 million of commitments from tax equity investors, including Bank of America (for Radian) and Morgan Stanley Renewables (for Athos III). Intersect also executed an offtake structure with Merrill Lynch Commodities to hedge the Radian project.
Project details
In July, Intersect Power named Signal Energy as the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) firm for two solar projects totaling 728 MW in Texas and California. The projects will use the NX Horizon smart solar trackers and TrueCapture yield optimization software from Nextracker.
The 415 MW Radian project in Texas and the 313 MW Athos III project in California are expected to begin construction later this year, and will enter service in 2022. Series 6 photovoltaic solar modules will be supplied by First Solar for both projects.
The projects are the second set of utility-scale solar projects that Nextracker and Intersect Power have worked on together in the two states. The earlier portfolio of five projects is under construction, and has a combined installed capacity of more than 1.7 GW. Signal Energy was the EPC firm on three of the five.
Both Radian and Athos III will use Nextracker’s TrueCapture tracker optimization and control software to capture additional energy gain during diffuse light conditions. The technology continuously refines the tracking algorithm of each individual solar array in response to existing site and weather conditions. Nextracker said the software can deliver energy gains from 2-6%.
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