energyRe has closed an $815 million financing package for five utility-scale solar projects in South Carolina totaling about 360 MW, the developer said Oct. 12. It’s the company’s largest portfolio financing so far and, by its own description, one of the largest solar-only deals the state has seen.
The projects sell power under 25-year purchase agreements. Bank of America acted as documentation agent, CIBC came in as a lender and Santander advised energyRe. A tax equity partner is in the deal but wasn’t named.
What the South Carolina solar financing leaves out
Quite a bit. The release doesn’t name the five projects, the counties, the offtaker or the EPC contractor. It also doesn’t split the $815 million between construction debt, tax equity and anything else in the package.
That last point matters for anyone doing math on it. Divided across 360 MW, the headline comes to about $2.26 a watt, which is well above what utility-scale solar costs to build. The likeliest explanation is that the figure stacks several pieces of capital on the same megawatts. That’s our read, not energyRe’s.
ENR noted that energyRe announced 25-year PPAs in February for a 360-MW South Carolina portfolio: Shorthorn in Lee County, Clarendon in Clarendon County, and Culpepper, Rollins and Ross in Darlington County. The size matches. The company hasn’t confirmed they’re the same five.
Grid work and local permits behind the solar portfolio
If they are, the schedule runs longer than the financing headline suggests. Duke Energy Progress estimates $10.1 million of interconnection work for Culpepper, paid by the project. Below-grade work has started on a Byrdtown Road 230-kV substation, and the plan includes a 230-kV switching station, a roughly 370-foot gen-tie and a reconfiguration of the Robinson Plant-Florence 230-kV line. Duke projects completion in April 2029.
Darlington County is also where local land-use rules got tested. The county reports 12,553 acres in some stage of solar development. Its council voted 5-3 on Sept. 10 against a moratorium and adopted an ordinance setting rules for the projects instead.
For civil and electrical contractors, a portfolio this size means grading, pile driving, tracker installation, collection systems and substations spread over several sites. It’s also the kind of work where installers are now bolting robots onto equipment to cut the labor of lifting modules by hand.
energyRe’s South Carolina pipeline
The company says it broke ground on about 450 MW of solar over the past year and has nearly 700 MW operating or in late-stage development. Its broader portfolio runs past 1.8 GW across 20 projects in South Carolina, North Carolina, Nebraska and Oklahoma, and it’s targeting $2 billion of South Carolina investment by 2030. Those are company figures.
Bank of America tied its role to a $250 billion infrastructure lending initiative, which says something about where big lenders see steady returns. The money’s closed. Who builds the five projects, and when, is the part energyRe still hasn’t said.