Dive Brief:
- Integrys is planning to invest between $40-50 million per year in commercial and residential solar.
- Through subsidiary Integrys Energy Services, the company will create a residential solar fund in Clean Power Finance's CPF Market, an online platform which helps utilities and other players finance distributed solar.
- Integrys is "eager to investigate and continue to invest in solar," said Dan Verbanac, president of Integrys Energy Services. “We're starting in the California, Hawaii and New Jersey markets and plan to roll out later to New York, Maryland, and Massachusetts."
- Integrys already owns 50 MW of commercial solar, but this is Integrys' first investment in residential solar.
Dive Insight:
As we predicted, utilities are starting to seize the opportunity in distributed generation.
“Traditional U.S. power companies are increasingly interested in solar, particularly residential solar,” said Nat Kreamer, CEO of Clean Power Finance. “The power company of the future will own both centralized and distributed generation, including residential solar.”
Duke Energy, Edison International, Dominion and NextEra Energy also invested in distributed solar as part of Clean Power Finance's $37 million financing round last year.
