Company amps up com mercial solar plan
STAMFORD — With more than $635 million in fresh capital, a local company is pushing ahead with plans to plaster the rooftops of offices, warehouses and shopping centers nationwide with solar panels.
Altus Power America debuted its new “AMPS” stock listing last week, with executives on Friday ringing the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange. To gain the listing, the company merged with a “blank check” company formed by CBRE, the largest commercial real estate brokerage and management firm in the United States, giving it access to the public markets.
While companies like Sunnova Energy and SunRun have focused on residential solar, Altus Power is securing agreements with commercial building owners. Enter CBRE, which formed a special-purpose acquisition company to sell stock to investors to fund the combination and provide fresh capital for Altus.
“The real answer to the scaling question came in the form of CBRE’s interest — if you’re a company that’s looking to put solar on rooftops, there is probably no better entity on the planet to partner up with than CBRE,” Altus Power coCEO Lars Norell said in a September podcast hosted by CBRE. “CBRE manages seven billion square feet of real estate and hundreds of thousands of rooftops.”
Altus Power is also pursuing traditional solar farms on unused land, including in Northford about five miles east of New Haven. The Connecticut Siting Council is considering the proposal.
In a Securities & Exchange Commission filing in early December, Altus Power projected revenue of $74 million this year from solar arrays nationally that produce 410 megawatts of power. The company had a slight loss in the first six months of this year.
Altus Power predicts it will have 1.7 gigawatts of solar capacity by 2024 — the equivalent of providing power to every house in Connecticut and roughly one of every two apartments.
In September, Norell said the Northeast represents an under-utilized market for development of solar despite limited effectiveness during winter when days grow short.
“A solar array that produces 100 units of electricity in Massachusetts may produce 150 or 160 units of electricity in Arizona,” Norell said in September. “But power prices in Massachusetts are 200 percent higher than they are in Arizona — so even though there’s less energy made in Massachusetts, the value of the solar system is actually higher up north than it would be down south.”