Recurrent receives $500M investment from BlackRock
Recurrent Energy, a subsidiary of Canadian Solar and a global developer and owner of solar and energy storage assets, has announced that Recurrent Energy B.V. has secured a $500 million investment from BlackRock.
The preferred equity investment commitment, convertible into common equity, comes through a fund managed by BlackRock’s Climate Infrastructure business and will represent 20% of the outstanding fully diluted shares of Recurrent Energy on an as-converted basis. Canadian Solar will continue to own the remaining majority shares of Recurrent Energy after the closing of the investment.
Recurrent Energy says the investment will provide it with additional capital to grow its project development pipeline while executing its strategy to transition from a pure developer to a developer plus long-term owner and operator in select markets including the U.S. and Europe. The company expects this transition to create a more diversified portfolio and provide more stable long-term revenue in low-risk currencies.
As of September 2023, Recurrent Energy had a global development pipeline of 26 GW in solar and 55 GWh in storage, of which 13 GW and 12 GWh respectively are projects with interconnections. Recurrent Energy expects to have 4 GW of solar and 2 GWh of storage in operation in the U.S. and Europe by 2026. The perimeter of the transaction includes the U.S., Canada, Spain, Italy, the U.K., France, the Netherlands, Germany, South Africa, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Australia, South Korea, and Taiwan; it excludes Canadian Solar’s project development business in Japan and China, and certain assets in Latin America and Taiwan.
“We are delighted to have the support of BlackRock, one of the largest and most sophisticated renewable energy investors in the world, as we scale Recurrent Energy in response to massive global demand for renewable energy and energy storage solutions,” said Ismael Guerrero, CEO of Recurrent Energy. “This investment will support our growth and continued ambition to make a difference by leading the renewable energy transition across the world. Our mission is to deliver clean, reliable, and affordable power to the world, today and tomorrow, and this milestone will help us continue to achieve this goal.”
Between 2022 and 2027, global solar capacity is projected to almost triple, becoming the largest source of power capacity in the world, according to the International Energy Agency. The growth of renewable energy, especially in the U.S. and Europe, is also driving demand for energy storage which provides dispatchable and reliable power to the grid. Wood Mackenzie projects global cumulative deployments of energy storage to exceed 1,000 GWh between now and 2030.
