Doral Renewables LLC has successfully closed construction project financing for Mammoth North, the first phase of Doral’s broader Mammoth Solar project.
Mammoth North is located on 4,500 acres in Starke County, Ind., in the northwestern region of PJM. The project will be a ground-mounted, single-axis photovoltaic system with 400 MW AC of solar power capacity.
Doral is also developing the nearby Mammoth Central and Mammoth South projects which, together with Mammoth North, will bring 1.3 GW AC of capacity to market.
Deutsche Bank AG, New York Branch acted as sole bookrunner, sole structuring bank and mandated lead arranger for the $392 million financing for the project, which consisted of a $157 million construction-to-term loan facility, a $170 million tax equity bridge loan and a $65 million letter of credit facility. Bayerische Landesbank, New York Branch and National Bank of Canada acted as lead managers with debt and letter of credit facilities Banco de Sabadell S.A, Miami Branch; Comerica Bank, a Texas banking association; Intesa Sanpaolo S.p.A., New York Branch; and Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. The closing was completed simultaneously with Doral’s signing of a nearly $175 million tax equity commitment for the project from Bank of America N.A. Marathon Capital Markets LLC acted as exclusive financial advisor for Doral.
Mammoth North will generate energy and renewable energy certificate revenue via its long-term power purchase agreement with AEP Energy Partners Inc., a subsidiary of American Electric Power.
“We are proud to support Doral with this financing and to have partnered with their world-class development team and furthered DB’s commitment to Sustainable Financing,” states Jeremy Eisman, head of infrastructure, energy financing and structuring at Deutsche Bank.
“Doral is thrilled to have collaborated with Deutsche Bank to raise this important piece of capital which will enable us to bring Mammoth North to commercial operation as expected in 2023,” comments Evan Speece, CFO at Doral Renewables LLC. “We look forward to continuing to work with our financing partners to bring clean energy from the other stages of Mammoth, and the rest of our growing pipeline, to customers throughout the United States.”
