By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

What Happened: Greentech Media reports that the commercial/industrial (C&I) sector now has $250 million in new money to purchase operational assets, thanks to the efforts of CleanCapital and CarVal Investors, the investment arm of industrial giant Cargill.

• According to GTM, CleanCapital has purchased mroe than $100 million in distributed generation projects in the past several years. focusing entirely on the C&I sector.
• The money will also allow CleanCapital to increase its focus on segments such as energy efficiency, storage and new construction solar.

Daughters of the American Revolution Hall
Photo courtesy of Standard Solar

SolarWakeup’s View:  OK, I must admit I was mildly confused by Greentech Media’s story on the joint-venture fund for the commercial segment, so indulge me a bit of insider baseball of the journalism sort.

The headline says the funds will be used to finance “C&I Solar,” but the body of the article doesn’t mention C&I solar at all in the body of the piece, which left me scratching my head. What I think is going on here is that the writer assumed solar when it was not in evidence, and that the funds will actually be used for a broader set of projects than the article implies.

Still, $250 million earmarked to fund energy efficiency, storage and new-build solar projects in the commercial segment is nothing to sneeze at, especially since (as the CEO of CleanCapital told GTM) the commercial segment has struggled to find money for such projects.

“I see a bulk of our capital going towards our continued growth in acquiring operating assets, while continuing our innovation this year to get to C&I projects with unrated offtakers,” President Jon Powers told SolarWakeup.

Powers also told SolarWakeup that it’s their vision to expand the C&I market beyond municipal and rated credits, something that can be challenging for traditional lending operations to understand.

I understand that inancing commercial solar is complicated, given the relative youth of the segment and the perceived instability associated with it. But the wariness of traditional lenders means that I agree with Powers: There is an untapped market in C&I waiting to be exploited if the money was there.

It’s always a good thing to see money coming into the C&I sector, given that it is the one segment of the solar industry that hasn’t had its boom yet. It’s time for C&I solar to have its day in the sun.

More:

CleanCapital and CarVal Investors Team Up on $250 Million C&I Solar Fund