Macquarie’s Green Investment Group completes Savion acquisition, arranges PPAs for over 700 MW of solar energy projects in North America

• Completed Savion acquisition expands renewables pipeline in US to over 10 GW.
• Arranged PPAs for over 700 MW of new solar renewable energy projects in first year in region, and 2 GW across all renewable technologies globally.
• Solar PPAs executed with Occidental, Central Electric Power Cooperative.

Green Investment Group (GIG) has announced that one year following establishment in the US, it has built a national development pipeline of over 10 GW and arranged power purchase agreements (PPAs) for over 700 MW of new solar energy projects in North America.

GIG is a specialist in green infrastructure principal investment, project delivery and the management of portfolio assets and related services and a subsidiary of Macquarie Group Limited (Macquarie).

Through development partners, GIG has created a national solar and storage platform focused on connecting US corporates with renewable power.

Acquisition of Savion completed

Savion is one of the largest utility-scale solar and energy storage project development companies in the US with industry-leading enterprise and site evaluation systems. Savion’s project pipeline includes over 8 GW of solar and energy storage development projects.

Based in Kansas City, Mo., Savion was previously part of Tradewind Energy, Inc., a subsidiary of Enel Power North America, and was acquired by GIG in August 2019. The team consists of over 65 employees, led by Rob Freeman and Geoff Coventry, two of the original founders of Tradewind, and is currently developing projects in more than 25 states and will continue to operate on a standalone basis.

Arranged PPAs for over 700 MW of solar energy assets

The acquisition of Savion, combined with other key partnerships, has helped GIG form a solar and storage strategy in which it will provide US based corporates with reliable and cost competitive renewable power from newly developed solar projects through power purchase agreements. This places GIG at the heart of the fast-growing US renewable energy PPA market.

GIG’s other recent partnerships in building a national US solar development platform include a joint venture with Austin, Texas-based Core Solar LLC with a development pipeline of 2 GW, and the 2018 launch of Candela Renewables, a new developer of utility-scale solar and storage power projects. San Francisco-based Candela develops assets exclusively for GIG.

Through these platforms, GIG has already arranged PPAs for over 700 MW of new solar energy projects, providing the project structuring and securing the financial commitment required to enable the projects to proceed towards construction. This includes:

• A 109 MW solar energy PPA with Oxy Low Carbon Ventures, LLC, a subsidiary of Occidental, through the Core Solar partnership
• Two 75 MW solar energy PPAs with Central Electric Power Cooperative Inc. through the Savion platform
• In September, GIG agreed to sell 95 MW of Savion-developed solar generating projects to a Subsidiary of Dominion Energy. T-Mobile USA, Inc. will receive the long- term power and renewable energy credits

"The GIG team in North America has strong conviction in the growth fundamentals of solar over both the short and long term given current low penetration rates, favorable solar resource and abundance of land combined with the increasingly competitive cost of solar compared to alternative energy sources. 

We will continue to develop and expand our project pipeline and seek to partner with utilities and corporate clients with an interest in acquiring renewable energy assets or low-cost renewable energy."

Chris Archer
Head of Green Investment Group, Americas

GIG’s operations in North America are complemented by the global growth of the business which is pursuing a 20 GW pipeline of renewable energy development projects across wind and solar. Globally, GIG has now arranged PPAs for 2 GW of renewable energy projects. Since 2010, Macquarie and GIG, which was acquired in 2017, has helped finance more than 22 GW of generation capacity in onshore wind, offshore wind, solar, thermal, hydro, waste-to-energy, storage and energy management projects, investing or arranging over $A8 billion in FY19 in projects around the world.

For further information on GIG’s role as a developer and arranger of PPAs see our Progress Report.