rPlus Energies CEO discusses recent USD 460m Sandbrook Capital commitment
The USD 460m partnership announcement between rPlus Energies and Sandbrook Capital will give the Utah-based development company the platform to launch into the next phase of its pipeline.
Luigi Resta, rPlus President and CEO, told NPM that the company has historically sold all or a majority interest in its projects. The Sandbrook investment allows for rPlus to own the projects it has developed and take them through construction as an owner. It also allows rPlus to go into operations as truly an IPP in the market.
“We really honed in and refined the documents in November with Sandbrook and are pleased we closed,” Resta said. “This is a realization of our current pipeline.”
This will start off with its paired Green River Energy Center project. Resta stated that rPlus will be financing and managing construction and owning and operating as a result of the Sandbrook investment. The project is slated to commercialize later this year and has a long-term power purchase agreement (PPA) in place with PacifiCorp. The project consists of 400 MWac solar and 400 MW, four-hour battery energy storage system, according to Resta.
“That’s the first and will be followed by other projects with PPAs that have been negotiated and are waiting for regulatory approvals,” he said, describing it as a “domino” of being able to continue to execute on what rPlus has done to date but with the idea to own them.
“We will always be adding new projects to the portfolio, both early-stage greenfield projects that we originate and ones we partner with others that have started a project,” Resta said, adding that rPlus loves “a two people and a pickup truck idea where we can really add our value to something that has been created.”
Resta said that rPlus will continue to develop its pipeline and already has 50 projects across four technologies, including solar, battery, wind, and pumped storage hydro.
“What we have today and will continue will keep us busy well into the 2030s,” he said.
When Resta first founded rPlus in 2018, he had a long history of renewable development at utility scale and started seeing needs from utilities for something dispatchable. This became the first thing rPlus did, which was create pumped storage hydro projects. Now, there are 43 operating in the US and utilities that have them “love them and want more.”
“Our goal is to be able to go through the FERC licensing process and get to a point where we can start construction on those,” Resta said. “We have 15 in various stages.”
One of these includes a pumped storage hydro project in Moffat County, Colorado. However, moving these projects through the FERC licensing takes time, anywhere from four to six years.
“I hope we can start construction on a project in 2026,” Resta said. “I won’t put wagers on which projects but hopefully one of our pumped storage projects in 2026 and commission in the 2030 timeframe.”
The Sandbrook agreement is investing up to USD 460m in the platform alongside continued support from Gardner Group, rPlus’ founding investor.
The pipeline for rPlus is a total of 15 GW and Sandbrook’s initial commitment enables bringing 1 GW of shovel-ready generation and storage online in the near-term, while advancing the balance through commercialization.
According to a press release about the partnership, Lazard Frères & Co. LLC. served as financial advisor to rPlus while Foley & Lardner LLP served as transaction counsel to the developer. Kirkland & Ellis LLP served as transaction counsel to Sandbrook, and Parr Brown Gee & Loveless served as transaction counsel to Gardner Group.
The past five years have seen rPlus develop over 630 MW of solar and wind projects that are in-service or under construction, including Graphite Solar and Appaloosa Solar in Utah. Additionally, rPlus is managing construction on its Pleasant Valley Solar project in Idaho Power system.
Sandbrook reached the final closing of its first fund, Sandbrook Climate Infrastructure Fund I, with a USD 1.5bn hard cap in December 2023. Sandbrook manages a total of USD 2.1bn, including associated co-investment vehicles.
*This story was originally published exclusively for NPM subscribers last month.
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