GE BlackRock Launch Distributed Solar Storage Business - SolarStar

General Electric is a big sprawling company that’s undergone some dramatic reorganizations over the past few years, particularly in its renewable energy, energy storage grid edge business lines.

But over the past four years, amid these large-scale corporate changes, a small unit of GE  has built a growing business around developing distributed solar solar-plus-storage projects.

On Tuesday, GE announced it’s taking this business to a new stage, via a partnership majority investment by asset management firm heavyweight renewables investorBlackRock Real Assets.

The new company, named Distributed Solar  Development, will be 20 percent owned by GE Renewable Energy 80 percent owned by a fund managed by BlackRock. The business, which has been incubated within GE since 2012, will focus on commercial, industrial public-sector customers.

Erik Schiemann, CEO of Distributed Solar Development a veteran of various GE business units, said in an interview that the investment would allow the company to exp its current project development work — , for the first time, own the projects it’s developing.

“What we specialize in at Distributed Solar Development is the origination, development, design, execution, building, asset management of distributed solar storage projects,” he said. Most of its projects to date have been behind-the-meter.

“BlackRock’s investment further advances our growth in that platform, allows us to take on new markets, allows us to double down in the markets we’re currently successful in.”

while the business hasn""t owned any of the projects it’s developed to date, that’s set to change with BlackRock’s investment. “The cash infusion allows us to participate as an owner of the assets,” he said.

BlackRock""s push into distributed energy resources

BlackRock Real Assets has primarily invested in utility-scale renewables, with $5 billion invested in over 250 wind solar projects with a total generation capacity of over 5.2 gigawatts. But it has made moves into distributed-scale solar projects this year, including April""s undisclosed investment into small-scale solar project owner CleanCapital.

David Giordano, global head of renewable power at BlackRock, said, “This investment will deepen our clients’ access to the tremendous growth potential in the U.S. solar industry."

Distributed Solar Development has developed about 125 projects in 15 states, working with a variety of solar PV system providers a set of regional electrical contractors, Schiemann said.

It has specialized in carport solar PV systems — “Our canopy solution, whether it’s in a carport or on top of a parking deck, is a big part of our volume, something we’ve really differentiated” — about two-thirds of its projects are behind-the-meter.

But it has also developed rooftop greenfield projects, as well as front-of-meter, distribution-grid-connected systems, he said.

Battery storage systems now make up a small portion of its projects, but “a majority of our West Coast projects now have a high attach rate of storage,” he said, matching broader trends for solar power in those markets. “In most of the key states known for storage, almost all of our proposals solutions incorporate them now.”

The U.S. commercial solar market has contracted in 2018 2019, according to Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables, largely due to increasing market saturation shifts to less favorable rate structures incentive programs in key states such as California, Minnesota, Massachusetts, New York New Jersey.

But WoodMac data also shows that developer-owners have captured an increasing share of this more challenging market, compared to those that limited their involvement to acquiring projects, while third-party financed projects have grown from about a third of projects in 2015 to more than half of all projects as of last year.

GE""s bumpy road through the solar lscape

Schiemann first started developing projects while working for GE’s PrimeStar thin-film solar PV manufacturing business, during the period when the company decided to abon the field by selling it to First Solar.

“I started pushing us in startup fashion toward distributed solar distributed solutions,” the company started ling commercial contracts in 2012, he said. This project development work continued during his time at GE’s Current then at GE Energy Ventures.

GE still makes solar inverters, switchgear other solar-related equipment, is heavily involved in financing investing in large-scale wind power projects.

GE is among the world""s leading suppliers of onshore wind turbines has big ambitions for the offshore market. Meanwhile, its approach to the solar, energy storage distributed energy markets has shifted dramatically over the past few years.

In 2015, GE created its Current business with $1 billion in investment, meant to bundle smart lighting, solar, EV charging, energy storage energy management services for commercial industrial customers. But in late 2016, it underwent a major restructuring that essentially stripped Current down to smart lighting building energy management, in 2018 it sold that business to private equity firm American Industrial Partners.

In 2018, GE’s energy storage business was shifted to GE Power, while the company underwent a broader restructuring that led to the formation of GE Renewable Energy as a stalone business unit, to house its renewable energy grid assets, including solar, storage, wind hydropower.

Solar remains a tiny fraction of GE""s overall renewables business; onshore wind accounted for nearly 90 percent of the Paris-based Renewable Energy segment""s revenues last year, with hydro chipping in most of the rest.