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The
announcement from TPG is part of the firm's push into climate
change and clean energy investing on behalf of clients that
include large pension funds and insurance companies seeking to
do more for the environment. The climate fund's executive
chairman is former U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, and
earlier this year it said it had raised $7.3 billion.
Intersect Power LLC, which is based in San Francisco, said the
new funding will help expand its portfolio of clean energy
projects to more than 8 gigawatts - about enough electricity to
power 1.5 million homes - from the current 2.4 GW.
It will also allow the company to pursue new businesses like
green hydrogen and wind energy, its chief executive said.
Hydrogen is considered "green" when it is produced using
renewable energy such as solar.
"This is an acknowledgement that a physical infrastructure
company, people that put steel in the ground, can also deliver
growth," Intersect CEO Sheldon Kimber said in an interview. "You
know $750 million is a lot of money, but when you look at the
scope and scale of our ambition, it's an appropriate amount of
money."
In a statement, TPG Partner Ed Beckley said the fund was
attracted to Intersect's track record of completing large solar
projects and its unique business model. Unlike many other solar
developers, Intersect retains ownership of its projects rather
than selling them to third parties and has pioneered
shorter-term contracts that generate higher investor returns.
Intersect has also relied heavily on domestic supplies of solar
panels from First Solar, helping insulate it from recent
disruptions in the global supply chain that have challenged the
fast-growing solar energy industry, Kimber said.
(Reporting by Nichola Groom in Los Angeles; Editing by Matthew
Lewis)
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