The facility bundles a letter of credit and equipment financing to support the company’s project pipeline.
Origis Energy, a Miami, Florida-based developer of renewable energy projects announced the closing of a bundled $375 million credit facility that included both a letter of credit and equipment financing. The funds are expected to support the developer’s growing pipeline of solar and energy storage projects.
Origis has a large development platform, with a 20+ GW pipeline of utility-scale and distributed projects. The company builds solar, solar-plus-storage, and standalone energy storage projects. It has a history of working with investor owned utilities, community choice aggregators, municipal electric providers, cooperatives, and large corporate buyers.
The credit facility was oversubscribed, suggesting a positive long-term assessment by numerous financial backers. This round of funding was led by CIT, a division of First Citizens Bank, along with Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Nomura, Rabobank, and Santander. Latham and Watkins represented Origis Energy in the transaction and Norton Rose Fulbright acted as lender counsel.
“As structuring bank, CIT demonstrated persistent leadership, bringing together a leading roster of financial partners,” said Jamie Edwards, managing director of finance and accounting for Origis.
Origis has developed 170 projects worldwide totaling more than 4 GW of solar and energy storage capacity. The company performs financing, engineering, procurement, and construction, operations, maintenance and asset management across the United States.
“As one of the most active renewable energy developers in the country, Origis was uniquely suited for financing of this type,” said Mike Lorusso, managing director CIT’s power and energy unit.
Antin Infrastructure firms, a leading global infrastructure investment firm, acquired majority stake in the developer late last year.
Origis Energy has been active in procuring PV modules in recent months, aiming for a steady supply to support its pipeline. Module supply has tightened considerably this year for utility-scale developers due to the antidumping investigation on four Southeastern Asian countries that supply 80% of US polysilicon-based solar panels.
Earlier in April, the company announced a 750 MW supply deal with US-based manufacturer First Solar. The deal was an “agile contracting” approach, meaning Origis will benefit from any technological advances made to the cadmium telluride thin-film module maker’s products.
In March, Origis booked a 400 MW module supply deal with Maxeon for high-efficiency bifacial modules. The deliveries are expected to take place in June 2023.
