News Briefs

Carlyle invests $350m in Aspen Power Partners to grow through add-ons

'Our investment in Aspen is a commitment to accelerating the widespread accessibility and availability of solar and storage,' said Carlyle's JB Oldenburg.

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  • Aspen is buying Safari Energy from PPL
  • Aspen says it is on track to achieve gigawatt scale by mid-decade
  • Aspen will work to serve the traditionally underserved distributed generation market

Carlyle has made a $350 million investment in Dallas-based Aspen Power Partners, a distributed generation platform, which is focusing on accelerating the decarbonization drive in the US.

The investment will be channeled towards supporting Aspen’s organic and acquisition-driven growth strategy within the community, multifamily, and commercial and industrial (“C&I”) solar and storage markets.

To launch this strategy, Aspen has acquired Safari Energy, a New York headquartered developer of solar energy that has acquired or developed more than 600 C&I solar projects nationwide spanning 24 states and Washington DC since 2008.

Aspen has acquired Safari’s complete development platform including its 220 MW portfolio of operating and under-construction distributed generation solar assets. Safari’s projects have generated more than 893,000 megawatt-hours of electricity.

“At Carlyle, we believe investing in renewables includes investing across the value chain. This includes investing in not only large utility scale renewable energy assets, but also community solar and distributed generation more broadly,” said Pooja Goyal, chief investment officer of Carlyle’s Infrastructure Group.

JB Oldenburg, Carlyle’s managing director on the Renewable and Sustainable Energy team said Aspen is well-positioned to benefit from the transformational shift in decarbonizing the economy.

“Our investment in Aspen is a commitment to accelerating the widespread accessibility and availability of solar and storage, which we believe is accretive to our portfolio by supporting this decade’s ambitious renewable energy and climate change targets,” he said.

Aspen executives said that Carlyle’s investment and the Safari acquisition support the company’s goal of accelerating the decarbonization drive.