(Bloomberg) —
Palmetto Clean Technology raised $1.2 billion in 2024 to finance residential solar and home electrification projects and aims to double that amount this year, the company said.
North Carolina-based Palmetto said it has raised another $300 million so far this month, with plans to reach a total of $800 million for the first quarter. Truist Bank invested $125 million in the company during last year’s fourth quarter and is in negotiations for an additional investment, said Chris Nygren, who heads the bank’s tax equity unit.
Almost all of the money that Palmetto raised last year has already been deployed, said Chief Executive Officer Chris Kemper. Homeowners, he said, are increasingly interested in leasing rather than buying expensive home upgrades such as solar panels or heating and air conditioning systems, amid high interest rates.
“It helps consumers save money and helps save the environment,” Kemper said in an interview.
Palmetto is positioning itself to compete with publicly-traded Sunrun Inc. and Sunnova Energy International Inc. Palmetto is the single largest investment of Social Capital, the venture capital firm led by early Facebook executive Chamath Palihapitiya. Neil Chatterjee, who led the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission during President-elect Donald Trump’s first administration, was recently named the in-house chief government affairs officer after previously serving as an independent adviser and a board member.
(Corrects Neil Chatterjee’s title in the fifth paragraph.)
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