Innovative Solar Systems (ISS), a utility-scale solar developer with a 12GW pipeline, has put itself up for sale as it seeks partners to support the company in its development of ever larger PV projects across the US.
North Carolina-based ISS is offering part or an entire equity sale of the company, and has already carried out discussions with potential suitors in the US and abroad.
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Founded in 2011, ISS’s solar development portfolio has expanded in recent years with higher capacity projects that require hundreds of millions of dollars to be built, according to ISS CEO and co-founder John Green, who owns a 50% stake in the company, with the other 50% held by his brother.
“The amount of projects that we do require a lot of capital,” Green told PV Tech. “It just makes good sense to bring in a large entity to now either own in part or whole our company so that it can continue to thrive and flourish.”
ISS’s pipeline consists of around 250 early-stage projects in more than 20 US states, and earlier this month it offered for sale two plants in Texas with a combined capacity of 425MWac that are both expected to be shovel-ready in the coming months.
The company said it has the ability to continuously add an additional 2 – 6GW of new projects to its existing pipeline per year.
ISS is in discussions with foreign companies looking to break into the US solar sector that would potentially buy part or all of the company, while keeping its current team, according to Green.
It is also talking with new entrants to the renewables industry. “We have quite a few clients that we’re talking with about this M&A offering that aren’t in the space yet, but want to be in the space because they understand there are huge profits to be made in this and they have billions of dollars they can deploy,” Green said.
Recent acquisitions of US utility-scale solar developers include Savion being bought by Royal Dutch Shell last month, while funds managed private equity firm Antin Infrastructure Partners acquired a majority stake in Origis Energy in October.
M&A deals in the global solar sector soared last year to 126 transactions in 2021 – the highest number of deals ever recorded, according to research published earlier this week by consultancy Mercom Capital Group.
