US-headquartered solar power producer Silicon Ranch Corporation secured $775m yesterday in an equity funding round led by insurance firm Manulife’s Investment Management vehicle, part of a resurgence in funding in the sector.
Manulife Investment Management put up $400m for the round, which included oil and gas supplier Shell, investment manager TD Asset Management’s TD Greystone Infrastructure Fund and venture capital firm Mountain Group Partners.
Silicon Ranch functions as the solar branch of Shell’s power distribution arm, Shell Energy, and runs a portfolio of solar farms and large-scale utility solar plants, on behalf of large businesses and governmental facilities.
The company’s solar and energy storage projects run to 4 GW across North America and the capital will support the fulfilment of its project pipeline as well as an expansion into new markets and potential strategic investments.
Reagan Farr, Silicon Ranch’s co-founder and chief executive, said: “As a society we are still in the early stages of the global energy transition and find ourselves at an inflection point defined by both critical need and enormous opportunity.
“This significant capital raise positions Silicon Ranch to play an important role in this transition and enables us to deliver customer solutions and make meaningful capital investments in the rural communities we serve.”
The deal came the day after PosiGen, a US-based solar energy and services provider backed by power producer Exelon, closed $100m in preferred equity financing.
Alternative asset manager Magnetar Capital’s Energy and Infrastructure group led the round, which also featured existing backers including Emerson Collective, Irradiant Partners, Activate Capital, The Builders Fund, SJF Ventures and The Kresge Foundation.
PosiGen supplies solar energy for residential customers in addition to installing energy efficiency equipment and offering roofing repair services. It last raised money through a series D round which closed at $60m in May 2021.
Cleantech investment is yet to recover from the funding crash in the early part of the last decade, as a silicon glut caused solar cell prices to crash while nascent technologies like wave, tidal and concentrated solar power failed to take off.
The decline has not however affected the renewable energy market in general, which continues to expand.
US Energy Information Administration figures show solar energy generated by utility and small-scale solar facilities expanded 26% in the year up to October 2021, growth that was mirrored in the wind energy market, and this has helped fuel a series of large deals in the sector of late.
Solar energy installation service Enpal completed a $290m SoftBank-backed series C round in October 2021 at a $1.1bn valuation, three months after concentrated solar power developer Heliogen agreed a merger with special purpose acquisition company Athena Technology Acquisition Corp valuing the combined business at $2bn.
The situation is also proving fertile ground for companies developing adjacent technologies. Koch Industries provided $150m for GameChange Solar, a producer of solar panel tracking systems, last month, weeks after renewable energy management software provider Lancium raised the same amount in a Hanwha-led round.
Shell had joined TD Greystone Infrastructure Fund and Mountain Group Partners to supply $225m for Silicon Ranch in December 2020 following $60m from undisclosed investors the previous year. It had paid roughly $200m for a 43.8% stake in the company in 2018, acquiring shares from investment manager Partners Group.
Photo courtesy of Silicon Ranch Corporation.
