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    Commercial property Clean Energy firm delivers $8M funding for 4.8-MW Carport Solar

    Jan. 3, 2023
    The carport-mounted solar photovoltaic system will be installed in the property’s parking lot and provide carbon-free energy to the building. The project is expected to deliver cost savings of $378,407 per year
    Image credit CommercialEdge
    Omega Building 63b47d65100c3

    PACE Loan Group (PLG), a provider of Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy (C-PACE) financing, has closed an $8 million loan for a 4.8-MW solar system at 1000 Omega, a corporate office in Pittsburgh. 

    The carport-mounted solar photovoltaic system will be installed in the property’s parking lot and provide clean energy to the building. The excess power generated by the 4.8-MW capacity project will be sold to the local grid. The project is expected to deliver cost savings of $378,407 per year. 

    "We're proud to support the largest deal in western Pennsylvania thus far,” PLG Chief Executive Officer Rafi Golberstein said in a statement. “It's yet another good example of how developers can use PACE to maximize efficiency under the new Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). PLG is increasingly seeing solar deals, like this one, come up due to the tax incentives offered by the IRA."

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    C-PACE financing allows commercial real estate developers to obtain low-cost, long-term financing for sustainable building improvements, including solar panels. C-PACE uses borrowed capital which is repaid over a 20 to 30-year period via tax assessments. To date, over $4 Billion of C-PACE loans have funded more than 2,900 commercial real estate projects.

    Despite a recent downturn, the U.S. commercial and industrial (C&I) solar industry has grown more than 7 percent annually over the past decade. Overall, it rose from about 100 MW of annual installed capacity in 2011 to more than 1,200 MW last  year, according to a report from real estate developer and investment firm CBRE Group.

    Future top potential markets for C&I solar installations include Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, central New Jersey, Memphis and Atlanta, according to CBRE.

    Among tenants known to be located at the Omega building include CEI, Lanier, FEIN Power Tools Inc., Nike, McDonald’s and Met Life.

    About the Author

    EnergyTech Staff

    Rod Walton is senior editor for EnergyTech.com. He has spent 14 years covering the energy industry as a newspaper and trade journalist.

    Walton formerly was energy writer and business editor at the Tulsa World. Later, he spent six years covering the electricity power sector for Pennwell and Clarion Events. He joined Endeavor and EnergyTech in November 2021.

    He can be reached at [email protected]. 

    EnergyTech is focused on the mission critical and large-scale energy users and their sustainability and resiliency goals. These include the commercial and industrial sectors, as well as the military, universities, data centers and microgrids.

    Many large-scale energy users such as Fortune 500 companies, and mission-critical users such as military bases, universities, healthcare facilities, public safety and data centers, shifting their energy priorities to reach net-zero carbon goals within the coming decades. These include plans for renewable energy power purchase agreements, but also on-site resiliency projects such as microgrids, combined heat and power, rooftop solar, energy storage, digitalization and building efficiency upgrades.