Total corporate funding in the global solar power sector, including venture capital (VC), public market and debt financing, totalled USD 12 billion (EUR 11.8bn) in the first half of 2022, falling 11% in annual terms, according to statistics by Mercom Capital Group,
The figures were given in the clean energy communications and consulting firm’s latest report on activity in the solar market, released on Monday.
The total funding in January-June was raised in 91 deals. While their overall value was lower than in the year-ago period, the number of transactions rose 28% from the 71 deals registered a year back.
"The current state of the economy—inflation, higher interest rates, supply chain issues—has started to impact fundraising in the solar sector,” said Mercom’s CEO Raj Prabhu. He highlighted the “pronounced” slowdown of activity from the first to second trimester of the year, which affected financing all ares, apart form VC and private equity funding.
Global VC funding in the first half climbed to USD 3.7 billion, coming from 53 deals with 145 investors. Solar downstream companies had the highest contribution, bringing 89% of the total amount in 39 deals. Overall, VC funding activity soared by 125% year-on-year. The top players were clean energy firm Intersect Power LLC, which in June secured USD 750 million in growth equity capital from TPG's global impact investing platform and others, followed by technology services platform Palmetto and its raising of USD 375 million to speed up the adoption of residential solar across the US. Massachusetts-based Agilitas Energy was third on the list with a deal that brought it USD 350 million in equity to remap up the development of a 500-MW portfolio of energy storage and solar projects across the US.
Solar public market financing in the reporting period slipped by 10% on the year to USD 3.3 billion raised in eight deals. Announced debt financing activity, meanwhile, came at USD 5 billion, down from USD 8.2 billion a year before.
The merger and acquisition (M&A) activity included 53 solar corporate M&A transactions, compared with 54 deals in the year-ago period. Deals that saw the change of ownership of 148 solar projects totalling 38 GW were carried out in the six months, against 136 project acquisitions for 40 GW of capacity a year earlier.
(USD 1.0 = EUR 0.985)
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Image by: Mercom Capital Grouop.
