Spruce owns a portfolio of approximately 41,000 residential PV systems that it operates and manages, located in 11 states including New York and California. NYGB has now committed $40.0 million alongside capital from five commercial banks to support the medium-term financing of these residential PV assets.
In March 2020, NYGB upsized its existing participation in the Spruce credit facility to $40.0 MM in support of the acquisition of two residential solar portfolios totaling approximately 59 MW. The portfolios contain a diversified mix of seasoned assets previously financed in part by tax equity investors. The PV systems were originated by developers such as Sungevity, OneRoof Energy and Terraform Power and will benefit from ongoing servicing to be provided by Spruce affiliate Energy Service Experts.
This transaction compliments a previous commitment by NYGB to Spruce in March 2017, that was refinanced by this recapitalization transaction. In the prior transaction, NYGB committed $6.0 million to a five-year $99.4 million senior secured term loan (which Spruce used to refinance an existing aggregation facility supporting 86.0 MW of generating capacity across 12,711 homes in 11 states). Over 6.2% of the initial portfolio was located in New York State and NYGB’s activity helped establish a new medium-term lending market for financing existing residential solar systems in NYS while providing liquidity for Spruce to develop additional projects.
