ECA Solar sees community solar opportunities in Delaware, Illinois
ECA Solar is looking to grow its portfolio of community solar assets in Delaware and Illinois, said the company’s CEO and founder Todd Fryatt in an interview with NPM.
The Massachusetts-based developer of grounded and rooftop solar and battery storage assets has an existing development pipeline of about 1.3 GW capacity spread across 215 projects in the country, Fryatt said.
Just last month the company announced it added four community solar assets with a combined capacity of about 15 MW in Delaware. The expansion represents an emerging growth territory for the company, which now has almost 25 MW of capacity in the state through its community solar program.
Fryatt said through the rest of the year ECA Solar expects to sign more purchase agreements in Illinois and Delaware. ECA also been a seller in these markets as it sold two projects this past March in Delaware to Luminace.
Separately, Fryatt said he sees high community solar-related growth potential in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin, among other markets.
“For current markets that are already enabled, the Mid-Atlantic has been good to us. And for future markets ... we believe there is a lot of potential growth for the industry in the Midwest, including Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and others,” Fryatt said. “We're quite active in advocacy and meeting with elected officials and trying to encourage the adoption of community solar statutes.”
Market focus
When ECA Solar first began business almost 11 years ago, the company was primarily moving in the C&I solar market in New England. As more community solar programs came online across the country, ECA’s business model has shifted towards more of those project types, Fryatt said, and the company has spread out in turn.
“Now the majority of our business is in the mid-Atlantic and Midwest,” Fryatt said.
The company develops solar assets for independent power producers such as utilities and infrastructure funds, who acquire or lease those assets at the shovel-ready stage of the project. The company owns real estate in six states, so in many cases maintains ownership of the land even when it sells the solar assets. And ECA hasn’t left the C&I market – Fryatt said he thinks there are more opportunities for commercial and industrial projects in its portfolio, particularly in the company’s home state of Massachusetts and neighboring New Hampshire.
Regarding Delaware, Fryatt said the state has been a core market for ECA Solar since it introduced sweeping community solar legislation in 2021.
“We now own four properties and counting in Delaware and a large number of active projects there,” Fryatt said. “We believe our market share is in the range of 16% to 18% of the market, so we’re a pretty large player there.”
Now with 27 full-time employees, Fryatt said the company plans to continue work on its pipeline of projects over the next several months and years. Fryatt said the company has a run-rate of 300 MW per year of new interconnection applications in may of the core markets its operates in.
*This story was originally published exclusively for NPM subscribers last month.
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