A capital raise and data centers with a microgrid niche are on the horizon in 2025 for DG developer Clean Footprint, said the company’s CEO John Porter in an interview with NPM.

Clean Footprint specializes in greenfield and brownfield ground-mount projects that range in size from 4 to 5 MW, with the exception of projects sited in Texas where they build qualified facilities (QFs) upwards of 10 MW.

Projects are typically packaged and sold at Notice to Proceed (NTP) or earlier to developers such as Pivot Energy, Soltage, New Leaf Energy, Altus Power, and EDP Renewables North America.

The Florida-headquartered developer is responsible for more than 350 MW of projects across several states including Massachusetts, Virginia, Illinois, and Ohio.

Its most recent sale was a portfolio of roughly 20 MW of projects in Illinois to an undisclosed Independent Power Producer (IPP).

Up until this point, the company has self-financed its development efforts but may be looking to bring in some additional financing over the next year to scale, Porter said.

The company is in the early stages of developing data centers that will be 100 MW and up in the sunbelt states. The projects are being developed with microgrid support because utilities cannot upgrade the grid fast enough, Porter said.

“Data centers need to be built and operating as quickly as possible to keep up with demand. So, our niche is a microgrid niche,” Porter said.

Porter said the company has also begun incorporating batteries with all their systems.

The company’s strategy is to enter markets early, sometimes even before legislation or policy is finalized in the region. Porter declined to share which markets they were currently working in.

Projects are packaged through its Origination+ team which houses its Geographic Information Systems (GIS) team, sales team, legal counsels, on-staff landman, site developers, and two senior executives.

The Origination+ team will complete a number of tasks in the early-stage development process depending on an IPP’s needs.

Some developers prefer early-stage involvement in order to procure their own equipment or style of development, while others prefer to acquire projects with everything packaged and ready for shovels to hit the ground, Porter said.

In order to do Origination+, Porter said they also strive for a clear pathway to interconnection with a utility. This means projects that are first or second in the interconnection queue.

One way they have been able to achieve this is getting to markets early before it becomes too crowded.

“The second one is like a puzzle,” Porter said. “You have to figure out how do I get projects done in a very crowed and difficult environment, like Illinois which is getting very crowded now.”

Challenges

Solving the puzzle can be by differentiating the type of project, Porter said. For instance, in areas where there may be opposition to ground-mounted facilities, maybe looking for a rooftop to build a project.

Porter described another scenario when Ameren Illinois got targeted a couple years ago, the northern utility filled up but Ameren in the south had been overlooked because of factors such as their value of energy being cheaper.

“It turned out that Ameren’s value of energy went up and the program was expanded in Illinois, and we were fortunate to enter the market in Ameren at that time, so we were able to get some good queue positions,” Porter said.

Origination+ also completes vetting of Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) investment tax credit (ITCs) screening early on.

“There’s a whole series of things that you need to be aware of to increase the viability and the profitability of the project,” Porter said. “Where we have the most influence in the process is siting them in low-income areas and energy communities.”

It is up to IPP buyers of a project to decide on other ITCs such as apprenticeship requirements and domestic content bonus credits.

Porter founded Clean Footprint in 2010. The company is headquartered in Cape Canaveral, Florida, where Porter served two terms as Mayor and ran an import-export business, Porter World Trade, which services theme parks and tourist attractions.

*This story was originally published exclusively for NPM subscribers.

NPM US (New Project Media) is a leading data, intelligence and events company dedicated to providing business development led coverage of the renewable energy market for the development, finance, advisory & corporate community.