The developer is active in community solar, multifamily, commercial, industrial, and rooftop markets.
Aspen Power Partners announced it raised $120 million in a funding round led by Ultra Capital, Redball Power, and others. The company was incubated at Energy Impact Partners, a global investor in sustainable energy transition.
Aspen also entered into agreements to develop or acquire 48 community and distributed solar projects totaling over 200MW across California, Maine, Maryland, New York, and Pennsylvania. The company said it connects its services to consumers and businesses across all income levels and hard-to-reach property types.
The company originates its own projects and partners with local developers to accelerate deployment. “We look forward to innovating with our key stakeholders as we develop and finance distributed generation solar, storage, and electric vehicle charging projects during this critical climate decade,” said Jorge E. Vargas, Managing Partner at Aspen Power Partners.
Late in 2021, the Biden administration set a target to power 5 million US homes with community solar projects by 2025. This represents a 700% increase in current capacity. In New York, a framework of 10GW of distributed solar by 2030 was initiated by Governor Kathy Hochul.
The Aspen team brings over $1 billion in renewable energy project financing experience, with expertise across development, construction, and asset management disciplines. It was founded by David Berv, Dan Gulick, Jackson Lehr, and Jorge Vargas.
Energy Impact Partners
Aspen’s incubator, Energy Impact Partners (EIP), has made over 80 investments exceeding $2.5 billion in the energy decarbonization transition. The company estimates its work thus far will save over 2.8 MT of carbon emissions.
EIP notably invested in Form Energy, the Boston-based startup that develops long-duration grid-scale iron-air batteries. The iron-air battery is composed of cells filled with thousands of iron pellets that are exposed to air and create rust. The oxygen is then removed, reverting the rust to iron. Controlling this process allows the battery to be charged and discharged.
Form said the batteries can store electricity for 100-hour durations at full systems costs competitive with active power plants. At full-scale production, Form said the modules would deliver electricity at one tenth the cost of lithium-ion batteries.
(Read: “Multi-day iron-air batteries reach commercialization”)
EIP is also an investor in Enchanted Rock, a microgrid deployer, Arcadia, a community solar platform, and Urbint, an AI-backed energy management company.
