Greenbacker Purchases Portfolio of Nine Pre-Operational Solar Projects in Vermont
Greenbacker Renewable Energy Company LLC, a non-traded limited liability company focused on green energy investments, has purchased, through a wholly owned subsidiary, a portfolio of up to nine pre-operational solar projects.
Greenbacker Renewable Energy Company LLC, a non-traded limited liability company focused on green energy investments, has purchased, through a wholly owned subsidiary, a portfolio of up to nine pre-operational solar projects from Norwich Solar.
The company said that when completed, the projects will lower power bills for local farmers and give new life to brownfield sites restricted from most uses.
The projects have long-term net metering agreements in place with over 30 agricultural offtakers from local farms and dairies across the state.
The company said that the net-metering aspect of the portfolio means that the utility will reduce the offtakers’ power bills by the amount of clean energy the projects supply to the grid. On average, each solar project is expected to save local farmers approximately $500,000 on energy costs over the lifecycle of the projects.
Norwich expects the portfolio will generate approximately $7.5 million in local wages during construction, as well as provide local landowners with supplemental long-term income via land lease payments. Additionally, Greenbacker is also actively assessing the portfolio’s potential for agrivoltaics which uses project sites for both solar photovoltaic power production and agricultural activities.
The company said that the three project sites will transform previous brownfields into sources of cheaper renewable power. The Andover project is located on part of a reclaimed gravel pit no longer in operation, and the Thetford Post Mills and Putney Green Acres projects are located on an abandoned landfill and former paper sludge disposal site.
Each project will have a clean power–production capacity of approximately 840 kilowatts (DC), for a total portfolio capacity of up to 7.6 megawatts (DC). Five of the projects are slated to reach commercial operation by the end of 2022, with the other four projects expected to enter operation by the second quarter of 2023.
Greenbacker’s fleet of sustainable infrastructure projects comprises more than 2.9 gigawatts of generating capacity. The company said that since 2016, its real assets have produced more than 4.9 million megawatt-hours of clean energy, abating nearly 3.5 million metric tons of carbon, and supporting more than 5,200 green jobs.
Greenbacker Renewable Energy Company seeks to invest in projects that sell clean power under long-term contract to counterparties such as utilities, municipalities and corporations.
