Encore Renewable Energy in Burlington Lands Financing to SolarRays

On By Littum

A Burlington Renewable Energy company has secured $ 389 million in funding from Toronto-based BrookfieldOne of the largest investment companies in the world with more than $ 1 trillion under management.

Chris Clement, Finance Director of Encore renewable energyTold Burlington Free Press that Brookfield’s obligation helps to “validate” encore as a leading renewable energy developer and operator, primarily by SolarRays, but also by battery energy storage projects.

“We are a growing company in the early stages of having established us as a leading independent power producer in the northeast and even nationally,” Clement said. “Brookfield helps validate the market view of Encore.”

A $ 1 billion pipeline of projects on average approx. $ 15 million each

Encore has about 100 projects in its development pipeline, worth more than $ 1 billion in total, according to Clement. The company’s niche is not a large solarays on the utility scale, but rather arrays covering 15 to 30 hectares, on average approx. $ 15 million each.

“We are really good at developing projects, but no one has a perfect track record,” Clement said. “Some will fall away, there is a constant swing to promote development, add places and build the pipeline.”

With the support of Brookfield and Zurich, Switzerland-based Susi PartnersA majority owner of Encore said Clement that the company will be able to dramatically speed up its ability to get projects done even with the uncertainty about the new Trump administration.

“There’s no partisan knows what we’re doing,” he said. “The vast majority of our work takes place in rural areas, where we believe we are an important contributor to economic development that gives land owners, often farmers, with alternative income flows that are otherwise not available to them.”

Investment tax credits that are important to the solar industry but not irreplaceable

Currently, the renewable energy industry is built around federal investment tax credits that companies such as Encore can sell to other companies of 90 to 94 cents on the dollar that they can use against their tax liabilities. But even if these tax credits disappear, Clement said the industry is mature enough to find another way to keep moving on.

“We are convinced that we have enough stability in the political landscape for us to operate without too much concern,” he said. “We hope (Brookfield’s investment) is a signal that private capital agrees. They would be on the sidelines if they were concerned.”

Latest investments from Brookfield have Encore’s home office and feel overcrowded

Encore’s building portfolio is centered on the northeast, but it has projects in Illinois, as far west as Colorado and New Mexico, and as far south as South Carolina. In particular, Clement said the company remains out of the enduring markets of Texas and California.

“They are very large, active, crowded markets,” he said.

Encore performs a lot of work in Vermont, and almost two -thirds of its approx. 50 employees are in Vermont, with offices at HulaThe collaborative campus from Pine Street in Burlington on the shores of Lake Champlain.

“It feels pretty crowded in there,” Clement said about the corporate offices. “We are adding a lot of engineers and construction managers and more members to the finance team to support this scaling effort.”

Contact Dan d’Ambrosio at 660-1841 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @dandambrosiovt.