US commercial solar developer Summit Ridge Energy (SRE) and investor Apollo have invested US$400 million into a new joint venture to jointly own and operate a portfolio of commercial solar assets in the state of Illinois.
While details on the new initiative are sparse, the project will build on growing interest in the Illinois solar sector, which saw over 500MW of new capacity added in 2024. Around 200MW of this new capacity was in the commercial sector, more than was added in the utility-scale sector, reflecting growing interest in distributed solar in the state with the 11th-most total operational capacity, as of the end of 2024.
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Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP served as the legal counsel for Apollo in this deal, which builds on a US$175 million investment made by Apollo into SRE in 2022.
“We are pleased to expand our relationship with SRE and enter this new partnership, which we believe represents a compelling opportunity to invest in solar projects poised to contribute domestic power generation capacity to meet growing electricity demands for households and businesses alike,” said Apollo partner Corinne Still.
The announcement of the joint venture follows SRE making a number of deals in the distributed solar sector, including a module supply deal with Qcells and a loan to develop new community solar capacity. Figures from the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) show that new community solar capacity additions saw a significant year-on-year increase to 905MW in 2024, a record figure.
However, this was still significantly less than the 17.4GW of new utility-scale solar added in 2024, itself a record figure for this sector, suggesting that utility-scale solar will continue to drive the US solar sector in years to come.
PV Tech publisher Solar Media will be organising the fourth edition of Large Scale Solar USA in Dallas, Texas 29-30 April. After a record year for solar PV additions in the US, the event will dive into the ongoing uncertainties on tariffs, tax credits and trade policies as more domestic manufacturing becomes operational. Other challenges, such as the interconnection queues and permitting, will also be covered in Dallas. More information, including how to attend, can be read here.
