Redeux Energy CEO speaks with the Denver Business Journal, June 2024
This article first appeared in the Denver Business Journal
By Greg Avery, Managing Editor, Denver Business Journal
A Denver renewable energy developer has sold its first projects, striking a deal with an independent power producer that’s buying projects for 450 megawatts of solar power generation in the South.
Redeux Energy Partners LLC on Monday said that Ashville, North Carolina-based Pine Gate Renewables, owner of utility-scale renewable energy projects and seller of electricity, is purchasing a trio of yet-to-be built solar power projects in Mississippi for an undisclosed price.
The projects, when built, will likely be worth hundreds of millions of dollars, based on averages reported by the federal government’s National Renewable Energy Lab. though as pre-construction projects the sale price for Redeux was smaller, Masinter said.
Still, selling the first trio of solar projects to Pine Gate Renewables is validation, Masinter said.
“It’s a proof of concept, right? It’s our first revenue and so therefore it’s a real milestone and a real testament to companies that we’re doing the right thing — that we’re developing projects that have value and are desired by others,” said Rob Masinter, founder and CEO of Redeux Energy, in an interview with the Denver Business Journal.
The solar projects are in the Midcontinent Independent System Operator territory, an organization that help utilities manage electrical power across the grid in the Midwest and part of the South.
It’s an area of the country where Pine Gate is looking to expand.
“Redeux Energy developed turnkey assets that will be competitive additions to our growing MISO pipeline,” said Andrew Vietze, senior vice president for mergers and acquisitions at Pine Gate Renewables, in a press release.
It validates Redeux Energy’s premise of being an early-stage developer of renewable energy projects, assembling land and getting early permits and setting up renewable projects for buyers with funding and desire to own large solar farms.
“They’re a terrific example of the type of counterparty that we will sell projects to over and over again,” Masinter said.
Redeux Energy formed in 2021 to develop renewable energy project, often solar power projects, in areas where local utilities and others may want to buy them.
The company specializes doing it in markets largely outside Colorado where independent power producers are more easily able to build projects and, once an interconnection agreement with a utility is achieved, send electrical power to paying customers.
The ability to site projects, start to design them and get them permitted is not common, but being able to do so in areas where there’s enough demand and connections to the grid can be lucrative — at least that’s Redeux Energy’s business model. Since forming in Denver, the company has grown from 10 people to 44 and today it is working on projects around the country capable of generating 7 gigawatts of electricity that are in pre-construction stages of development.
The projects being sold are expected to have final interconnection approval and get built in 2027 or 2028, Masinter said.
Redeux Energy is out trying to raise capital new to fuel the company’s growth and be able to start on more projects, he said.
The sale to Pine Gate is good sign of progress, said Cathexis Holdings, the company’s largest shareholder, in a statement.
Chicago-based Marathon Capital, a clean-energy-focused investment bank, is marketing Redeux Energy’s first portfolio of 1.7 gigawatts worth of projects, and says the company is capitalizing on rising demand for renewables.
“Redeux is well-positioned for further growth, and we look forward to collaborating on future opportunities,” said Sarah Nash, director for Marathon Capital.
