Pillsbury Represents APG on Investment in Largest U.S. Solar Project

 APG acquired a 49% stake in the $1.2 billion Gemini project, which Quinbrook subsidiary Primergy Solar LLC is developing on 7,100 acres in the Mojave Desert, 33 miles northeast of Las Vegas. The project is slated to produce as much as 690 MWac solar plus a 1,416 MWh battery energy storage facility—enough to power Las Vegas with 100% renewable energy during peak summer months. When a total of $1.9 billion in debt and tax equity financing was completed in April, it was described as one of the largest single-asset tax equity solar financings ever completed in the U.S.

 Partners Jorge Medina, Veronica Relea and Steve Becker, counsel Shellka Arora-Cox, and associates Samantha Franks, Jack Price, Zachary Rozen, Samantha Sharma, Alberta Waingort-Sutton and Majk Kamami were instrumental in completing the transaction.

 The Gemini project features 1.8 million solar panels plus 380 megawatts of energy storage capacity. The batteries will charge entirely from the solar system and be able to supply offtaker NV Energy with four hours of power after sunset. The solar+storage power plant will displace the equivalent of 1.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year. It is scheduled to be completed in late 2023.

 “We have a very significant interest in expanding our investments in renewable energy. The Gemini project seemed a natural fit,” Steven Hason, an APG managing director and head of real assets for the Americas, told The Wall Street Journal. “What we also like here is the double bottom line of also providing attractive financial returns as well as societal impact by continuing to invest in the energy transition.”

 APG is one of the world’s largest pension investors, with 558 billion euros under management as of August 2022, and offices in Amsterdam, Heerlen, Brussels, New York, and Hong Kong, as well as satellite sites in Beijing and Shanghai. It made the purchase on behalf of the Dutch pension known as ABP.