(Bloomberg) -- Blackstone Inc. is investing $288 million in energy storage and solar company Pine Gate Renewables, as part of its push toward financing renewable energy.
Blackstone Credit and Insurance, or BXCI, is providing the preferred equity, which will be used to support six solar projects across two states expected to total 780 megawatts of power, according to a statement seen by Bloomberg News. This deal comes from BXCI’s infrastructure and asset based group, which has inked a number of similar investments over the last year, including a $350 million deal with Arevon Energy.
“Pine Gate is a high-quality developer with a strong track record and we look forward to growing our partnership with them,” Zach Rubenstein, a managing director at Blackstone, said in a statement, adding the deal showcases Blackstone’s “differentiated origination and structuring capabilities.”
BXCI was formed last year when Blackstone combined its corporate credit, asset-based finance, and insurance groups. The unit, led by Gilles Dellaert, now has about $350 billion of assets under management, with a goal to grow its total credit assets to $1 trillion within a decade.
The Pine Gate investment is Blackstone’s latest bet on clean energy. Last year, it closed a record $7.1 billion fund to finance solar companies, electric car parts makers and technology to cut carbon emissions. That marked the firm’s biggest stockpile for a bet that the economy will rely less on oil and gas in the future — and that companies behind the shift to lower-carbon sources will need financing.
Key Blackstone funds swore off backing oil and gas exploration and production in 2022, capping off a years-long retreat after returns for some energy bets see-sawed.
For Pine Gate, the deal adds to existing buckets of investments from major financial firms. Earlier this year, the Asheville, North Carolina-based company announced that it got a $650 million investment from Generate Capital, the Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan and Australian superannuation fund HESTA to finance three gigawatts of clean energy infrastructure by 2025.
BXCI’s infrastructure and asset based group has about $75 billion in assets under management and has committed more than $20 billion this year.
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