Greenbacker Renewable Energy has secured $437 million in financing to repower two utility-scale wind energy assets in Iowa and complete a like-for-like equipment replacement at its largest wind farm in Minnesota.
“These repowers are among the first deals to utilize the ‘domestic content adder’ put in place under the IRA, a win for U.S. manufacturing, and we are quite frankly thrilled to be an early success story demonstrating that the legislation is bolstering additional renewables investment,” says 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. We’re grateful to the landowners for their support and we look forward to working closely with them for years to come.”
The repowers represent the company’s first projects financed via sale-leaseback.
To finance this deal, Greenbacker collaborated with Bayerische Landesbank 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.
Huntington was the sole provider of the long-term sale and leaseback tax equity financing for the three wind farms.
Bedrock Renewables led the development of the repowers and supported the financings on behalf of Greenbacker.
Greenbacker has repowered its 38 MW Hawkeye wind energy project in Iowa, replacing the project’s older turbines. Work has also been completed at the company’s 30 MW Community Wind South project in Minnesota and at the 42.5 MW Elk wind asset in Iowa.
