(Bloomberg) —
Goldman Sachs Asset Management has teamed up with private-equity firm Cleanhill Partners to buy a majority stake in clean energy firm EPC Power Corp. for an undisclosed price.
EPC Power is “uniquely positioned to play a critical role in the evolution of the US solar and energy storage value chains,” said Alexander Mass, managing director of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, in a statement Thursday. He also highlighted the company’s decision to make its products in the US.
The deal is the latest to bounce off President Joe Biden’s climate bill, the Inflation Reduction Act, as investors look for ways to capitalize on the wave of legislative support for the renewable energy industry. The IRA’s provision of a tax credit to stand-alone energy storage creates “a significant financial incentive for adopting EPC Power’s inverters and other technologies,” Goldman and Cleanhill said in the statement.
The investment comes with a “comprehensive recapitalization,” and “positions EPC Power to expand,” they said.
Storage is becoming a significant part of the solar industry’s growth strategy, according to BloombergNEF. Joint ventures offer “a good way of expanding into this market” because battery systems need “significantly more active management than a solar plant, and the financial and technical challenges can be quite complex for a new entrant,” said Lara Hayim, an analyst at BloombergNEF.
To date, EPC Power has sold more than two gigawatts of smart inverters globally. The company is based in Southern California and employs about 180 people. It also has an engineering and sales office in Helsinki.
William Blair & Co. served as the exclusive financial adviser to EPC Power; Foley & Lardner served as legal counsel to EPC Power; Vinson & Elkins and Kirkland & Ellis served as legal counsel to Goldman Sachs and Cleanhill Partners.
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