Both Staten Island solar facilities are now in the deployment stage.
UGE has secured debt and tax equity financing for its next two community solar projects located in New York City. Both projects have now reached the Notice to Proceed (“NtP”) milestone, the point at which construction can commence.
The two solar facilities, initially announced by UGE in November 2020, will be located in Staten Island, New York and will have a combined rated capacity of 723kW. UGE expects the solar facilities, both of which are on buildings owned by the same real estate owner, to become operational by the end of 2021.
For both the project-level debt and tax equity financing, UGE received multiple offers from institutional sources, and selected the partners based on attractiveness of terms and on the opportunity for the relationship to expand over time. The terms were in line with UGE’s prior expectations.
Project-level construction and term financing was secured with an institutional lender with which UGE has an existing relationship. The debt facility is a customary construction-to-permanent structure, wherein the construction financing will become term debt once the solar facilities are operational. At that point, the contractual interest rate will be 6%, the term will be seven years, and the amortization schedule will be over 20 years. During the construction period the interest rate is 8.5%.
Simultaneously, UGE has committed to moving forward with an institutional source of tax equity financing for the two projects, having signed a term sheet and commenced due diligence. The tax equity investment is through a customary partnership-flip agreement.
“UGE’s project development team has been exceptionally busy in the past year, securing new projects throughout the northeast United States, increasing our project development backlog and our overall pipeline,” said UGE’s CEO, Nick Blitterswyk. “Through financing these two projects we experienced strong demand from both debt and tax equity sources. As a growing number of our projects reach the deployment stage through the end of 2021 and into 2022, we look forward to expanding these project financing relationships on increasingly favorable terms.”
About UGE
UGE develops, owns, and operates commercial and community solar projects in the US and strategic markets abroad. Our distributed energy solutions deliver cheaper, cleaner energy to businesses and consumers with no upfront cost. With over 400MW of global experience, we work daily to power a more sustainable world. Visit us at www.ugei.com.
For more information, contact UGE at:
+1 917 720 5685
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