New York-based Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR) has partnered with Google to invest in a portfolio of six solar photovoltaic (PV) facilities that are being developed and will be managed by California-based clean energy company Recurrent Energy, the companies said in a joint statement.
The facilities – five located in Southern California, one in Arizona – are expected to be operational by January 2014 and have a combined capacity of approximately 106 megawatts (MW).
KKR and Google used a combination of equity investments and debt financing for the transaction, but did not disclose the amount invested.
The companies have secured long-term power purchase agreements (PPA) with local utilities, such as Southern California Edison, and municipal off-takers but they did not disclose the names of the other off-takers nor the duration of the signed PPAs.
“This partnership is ultimately about growing our clean energy resources in North America,” said Ravi Gupta, a senior member of KKR’s infrastructure team. “As states like California and Arizona adopt high standards for the use of renewable energy, we believe private capital partners can play an important role in helping them meet these goals.”
For the San Francisco-based technology giant Google, this transaction marks its 14th investment in renewable energy, bringing its total investments in the sector to more than $1 billion.
KKR, which invested in the portfolio through its infrastructure fund, has made five renewable energy investments in the last three years. They included wind generation in France and solar generation in Spain, Canada, and the US.
The three companies have teamed up before. In December 2011, KKR and Google invested in four utility-scale solar facilities near Sacramento, California, also developed by Recurrent Energy, which currently has more than 2 gigawatts (GW) of solar projects in development in North America.
Publicly-listed KKR manages assets, totaling $90.2 billion as of September 30, through a variety of investment funds covering multiple asset classes.
Photo courtesy of Recurrent Energy.
