INTERVIEW: Apricus co-founder discusses acquisition strategy and storage plans

Apricus Generation is nearing the final stages of its second acquisition just months following the majority stake acquisition of Nexus Renewables and also expects to commercialize its first battery energy storage (BESS) project in the coming months, said Apricus co-founder, Gautam Chandra in an interview with NPM.

“We’re expecting to have our first operating assets under the Apricus umbrella very soon with the Nexus acquisition—a sizeable project that should be completed in the next couple of months,” Chandra said, adding that the project is in California.

“Once it becomes operational, it’s going to be throwing out significant cash flow for the company,” Chandra said.

As reported, the company is focused on building a national distributed solar and battery development platform and independent Power Producer (IPP) acquired controlling interest of Nexus, a solar and storage developer in May.

While Chandra was unable to reveal the company behind its second acquisition, he did say that the developer is bringing with it operating assets that are already generating a significant cash flow.

The key differentiators between the two companies would be the geographical coverage, which Chandra described the next acquisition to be complimentary to what they have with Nexus.

The two companies also complement each other on the types of projects, Chandra said. While Nexus is strong in community solar and utility scale battery storage development, the other developer has a strong focus on Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) with municipalities, local governments, and commercial entities.

“After these two, we may do one or two more, but we are not in any rush to do that because there’s a lot of work to realize the pipelines that we’re acquiring just with these two developers,” Chandra said.

“We have a lot of inbound interest from developers,” Chandra said. "I think our story is getting out there and people are starting to see that this is the type of model that is going to break the logjam that currently exists. For small developers that really do not have the teams, the ability to reach the institutional capital market directly—we provide this needed bridge.”

Last month, Apricus also announced the closure of its Series A funding round led by Blue Marlin Partners and Current Yield with Participation (CYwP) Fund. With the closing, Apricus raised the majority of Series A capital and is over committed towards its USD 100m corporate equity capital raise goal.

“We did our first closing with them a few weeks ago and we’re expecting to do additional closings that will round out the full capital that we set out to raise,” Chandra said.

“Our focus is going to shift a little bit more towards taking the pipelines that we have in development stage, raising the needed capital for construction of the pipelines to get them commissioned and operating,” Chandra said.

Over the next several years, Chandra hopes Apricus will bring a couple of gigawatts of projects from development to operation across the country.

“We’re really versed and connected to the institutional capital that wants to go to this space,” Chandra continued. “We have been there. We have been developers. We have built companies. We’ve exited companies. We can talk the developer talk and really help them realize their pipelines to get them built and operating--that is where most of the value is.”

Storage Plans

The four key states Apricus is focused on for battery storage is California, Texas, New York, and Massachusetts.

In California, the grid itself is the offtaker because it is in dire need of support, Chandra said. Texas is in a similar situation, but for slightly different reasons. Apricus has some sizeable projects in the Lone Star State.

“Battery storage is now really needed to balance the grid to be able to dispatch renewable 24/7 versus just when the sun is shining, or the wind is blowing," Chandra said.

Texas has a huge need because of the disparity of when the energy is needed and when a lot of the renewables is being produced.

Chandra said he is also seeing battery storage opportunities in New York and Massachusetts.

“Those are really driven because those states are at the forefront of policy," Chandra said. "They’ve seen what they want to do with renewables in those states in the long term. They understand the need for building the battery storage infrastructure to compliment the intermittency of renewables, so there’s incredibly good policy and incentives that drive projects in those two states.’

*This story was originally published exclusively for NPM subscribers last month.

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