With its liquidity crisis worsening, Pine Gate Renewables failed to raise additional capital in seven separate processes launched in 2024 and 2025.

According to an affidavit submitted by Pine Gate’s co-founder, president and CFO Ray Shem, these processes took place between 1Q24 and as late as 2Q25, prior to expanding the role of Lazard and Alvarez & Marsal in August 2025 and September 2025, respectively, to explore a restructuring of the business.

The subsequent failure to raise any additional liquidity led the Asheville, North Carolina-based independent power producer to get rescue capital from three of its secured lenders and ultimately credit bids for three pools of its assets.

Absent the rescue finance deals reached on October 6, Pine Gate said it had USD 8.5m in cash left and was in payment default with its preferred equity holders.

The next step in Pine Gate’s bankruptcy filing takes place later today when it is, among other things, going to ask Judge Christopher Lopez of the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas to approve bidding procedures that calls for an auction for those three pools to wrap up by the end of December.

Because of the loans that Pine Gate lined up in the past two years and additional debt needed to fund its bankruptcy case, any third-party bidders will need to outbid credit bids, worth a collective USD 1.531bn, to have a seat at the table.

The process

These processes took on all shapes and sizes, but the most advanced may have been where it reached a letter of intent to sell two solar PV farms in the Carolinas–LandRace and Phobos—in 4Q24 to NextEra Energy Capital but it failed to result in a deal.

In the 1Q24, the affidavit cited Pine Gate’s efforts to sell a seven project portfolio, mostly 20 MW or below and within PJM, and while they did outreach to 130 potential investors, it got no traction after six months. NPM Interconnection queue data indicated at least two of those projects, Salt Solar and Richardson Solar both executed interconnection agreements in 2023 and later withdrew their applications in 2025.

Pine Gate also tried to execute on a farm down in 2024 in which it sought to raise up to 49% equity stake on “materially” all of its assets. NPM reported on May 2 that Pine Gate hired Morgan Stanley to run the process. The affidavit indicated that despite contacting 50 investors, no action was taken.

In early 2025, Pine Gate had also attempted to raise additional preferred equity at the project level, and this also never got any proposals in spite of contacting 22 potential investors.

This came only months after Pine Gate closed on a USD 288m preferred equity investment with Blackstone Credit & Insurance (BCI) to support six projects across two states, totaling 780 MWdc.

Pine Gate also reached final close on a USD 650m capital raise from Generate Capital, the Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan (HOOPP) and HESTA in April 2024. This bought the IPP’s collective preferred equity to USD 1bn.

Market sources had told NPM in recent months that Pine Gate faced a number of headwinds in raising this kind of capital, even before policy headwinds got so severe in 2025 after Congress approved tax credit sunsets for solar and wind projects, and tariffs threatened to raise costs on equipment utilized for these projects.

On the asset sale front, a lot of operational and late-stage assets from Pine Gate were in ratepayer territory in the Carolinas, where project returns were lower, while interest rates remained high, so traditional investor interest in asset recycling were deterred.

While farm downs or capital recycling remain prevalent, larger IPPs have downplayed expectations as the fund-raising has slowed in the energy and infrastructure space, while interest rates have still remained high.

Clearway Energy, for instance, announced recently that it engaged in a two-part transaction to acquire 613 MW in operational assets from Deriva, including acquiring 100% of operational solar assets and partnering with Fengate Asset Management on a 227 MW operating portfolio located in the Western US.

NPM reported in the spring of 2024 that Scout Clean Energy hired CIBC to sell down a minority equity stake initially of a 1 GW portfolio of operating or under construction projects, only to re-purpose it later in the year to only involve a 530 MW portfolio of onshore wind farms.

The descent

The capital raises were needed as both Pine Gate and its wholly owned contractor Blue Ridge Power (BRP) ran into issues at both a macro and micro-level.

BRP experienced challenges “estimated managing project costs and meeting project construction schedules, which in addition to mounting disputes with customers and subcontractors, have resulted in an acute capital to support outstanding payables to vendors.”

This is amidst more broader EPC challenges such as increased costs, supply chain disruptions, and other market factors. As reported, BRP filed a WARN Act notice with the North Carolina Department of Commerce saying it could impact 517 workers across two locations and has an effective date of November 18.

However, raising capital became compromised by industry headwinds and rising project costs which reduced the “appetite for investment in solar assets, decreasing the value of PGR’s fleet and impairing PGR’s ability to sell projects in order to raise capital.”