Zelestra CEO Leo Moreno charts global pipeline, personnel expansion and company rebrand

Homing in on his one-year anniversary at the helm, Zelestra CEO Leo Moreno says is guiding the development firm into a period of major pipeline and personnel growth alongside a rebranding of the company.

Zelestra officially rebranded from its former name Solarpack last week to reflect its status as a developer of a variety of renewable technologies beyond solar. The company has expanded beyond a solar-specific pipeline to include wind, storage and even green hydrogen developments in a bid to diversify its asset base as a growing owner/operator. In an interview with NPM Moreno called the move a “key step in the evolution of the company.”

“Differentiation is vital to remain relevant and competitive,” Moreno said.

For 2024, Moreno says the company is on track to meet its goal of signing 1.5 GW of new PPAs. The firm is on the heels of signing its first deal in the US, a two-project PPA with Meta to supply power to the company’s planned USD 800m data center in Jeffersonville, Indiana.

The 15-year PPA will encompass supply from Zelestra’s 79 MW Jasper County Solar project and 200 MW Reclamation Solar project, both sited in Indiana. Both projects have already secured interconnection agreements with MISO. Jasper County solar is expected to reach COD by the end of next year with Reclamation slated for early 2027.

Moreno says he hopes the contract will “serve as a great foundation for a growing relationship with Meta,” as well as the firm’s presence in Indiana.

“Given our respective global presence in international markets, our approach is to explore future opportunities [with Meta] where our operations overlap,” Moreno said.

Jasper County and Reclamation Solar make up a small part of Zelestra’s current 3 GW pipeline in the US, but the company plans to dramatically increase that figure over an aggressively short timeframe.

Moreno says the company expects to grow that number by as much as 10 GW over just the next two years with a target of 5.5 GW of capacity in operation and 8 GW contracted by 2026. Moreno says this pipeline will be diversified geographically focusing primarily on MISO, SERC, ERCOT and SPP with additional solar and storage projects in CAISO and WECC.

Global plan

Zelestra says the company’s global targets are similarly aggressive. Overall, he says the company’s current global pipeline sits at 19 GW today and is expected to balloon to 28 GW by year-end and 45 GW by 2026. To that end, Zelestra announced earlier today a EUR 210m (USD 225m) increase in its sustainability-linked corporate financing facility to EUR 535m from USD 310m and a two year extension until March 2028.

Coinciding with this exponential pipeline growth, the company has seen similarly explosive growth within its own staff. At the start of 2024, Moreno says the company was comprised of roughly 700 employees. He says that number is expected to soar to “well over 1,000” by year end.

Moreno says this hiring spree is mainly focused on establishing five distinct business units based in various sections of the globe corresponding to where its development efforts are focused. These include the US, Germany, South Europe, India and Latin America. Moreno says each business unit will operate independently and grow their own pipelines.

Naturally, a key obstacle for Zelestra as it embarks on this aggressive growth plan will be the supply chain and interconnection challenges that have been a thorn in the side of most developers over the last couple of years. Moreno admits Zelestra has not been immune to these challenges but says the company’s plan of attack runs congruently with its pipeline expansion strategy of staffing up with personnel familiar with the landscape.

“We are navigating these challenges primarily by hiring seasoned experts who understand the local markets, monitoring policy evolutions for both solar tariffs and interconnection reforms, and working with our existing strategic suppliers to ensure framework agreements that best position Zelestra for compliance, competitiveness and efficiency.”

EQT Infrastructure, via its fifth flagship fund, acquired Solarpack at the end of 2021 in a take private bid.

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

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

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