Greenbacker Completes $437 Million Financing for Repowers in Company Milestone: First Wind Repowers to Leverage the Domestic Content Bonus
Summary
In addition to qualifying for the 30% investment tax credit (ITC), the projects are also among the clean energy industrys first to utilize the additional 10% domestic content bonus newly created by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), based on their use of components manufactured in the US, including new turbine blades, hubs, and nacelles.These repowers are among the first deals to utilize the domestic content adder put in place under the IRAa win for US manufacturingand we are quite frankly thrilled to be an early success story demonstrating that the legislation is bolstering additional renewables investment, said Armand G. Dehaney, Principal of Investments at Greenbacker. With the newly redeveloped projects, we are proud to create green jobs, generate tax revenue, and continue to produce affordable renewable power for Iowa and Minnesota. Were grateful to the landowners for their support and we look forward to working closely with them for years to come.The repowers also represent another milestone for Greenbacker: its first projects financed via sale-leaseback. The sale-leaseback structure provides Greenbacker greater upfront proceeds, while also creating a more efficient transaction that captures the benefits of both tax equity financing and back leverage lending in one transaction.Greenbacker has repowered its Hawkeye wind energy project (38 MW, IA), replacing older turbines with new, more efficient components that have been sourced domestically.To finance the repowers, Greenbacker collaborated with existing lender Bayerische Landesbank (BayernLB) to secure $81.5 million in construction bridge loan facilities and additionally secured long-term debt and tax equity financing from Huntington National Bank via sale-leasebacks totaling $355.7 million.This marks our first tax credit transaction with Huntington, with whom weve closed our first sale-leaseback financing, Dehaney said. The Bedrock management team has extensive experience in renewable project development and finance, and was instrumental in resolving concerns from landowners, local administrations, and project partners to help ensure this repower portfolio was a success.Bedrock is grateful for the opportunity to support Greenbackers repowering initiatives, said Justin Fike, Partner at Bedrock.