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Houston company secures $100M to fund solar projects across New York

Catalyze’s proprietary suite of technology will bring solar development practices to Lancaster and Amherst areas. Photo courtesy of Catalyze

Houston’s Catalyze announced that it secured $100 million in financing from NY Green Bank to support a 79 megawatt portfolio of community distributed generation solar projects across the state of New York.

The loan is part of Catalyze’s increased presence in New York State with operational projects coming to Lancaster and Amherst. Catalyze’s proprietary suite of technology will bring solar development practices to the area.

Catalyze is a Houston-headquartered clean energy transition company that builds, owns, finances, and operates solar and battery storage systems. Catalyze is backed by leading energy investors EnCap Investments L.P. and Actis. NY Green Bank is a division of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority.

The deal aims to advance New York State’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act goal of installing six gigawatts of distributed solar by 2025. This is part of a larger goal to 10 GW by 2030.

Catalyze owns two proprietary technologies in REenergyze, which is an origination-to-operations software integration platform to accelerate and scale nationwide adoption of commercial and industrial solar and storage, and SolarStrap. SolarStrap isa mounting technology to install rooftop panels.

“We are excited to leverage our extensive community solar expertise to ensure the success of NY Green Bank’s term loan supporting a community distributed generation (CDG) portfolio,” Jared Haines CEO of Catalyze, says in a news release. “CDG is one of the most effective means of making solar energy more accessible to low-to-moderate income communities, and we look forward to how this partnership will support both the goals of NY Green Bank and New York State.”

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A View From HETI

A new joint venture will work on four projects supplying 5 gigawatts of power from combined-cycle power plants for the ERCOT and PJM Interconnection grids. Photo via Getty Images.

Houston-based power provider NRG Energy Inc. has formed a joint venture with two other companies to meet escalating demand for electricity to fuel the rise of data centers and the evolution of generative AI.

NRG’s partners in the joint venture are GE Vernova, a provider of renewable energy equipment and services, and TIC – The Industrial Co., a subsidiary of construction and engineering company Kiewit.

“The growing demand for electricity in part due to GenAI and the buildup of data centers means we need to form new, innovative partnerships to quickly increase America’s dispatchable generation,” Robert Gaudette, head of NRG Business and Wholesale Operations, said in a news release. “Working together, these three industry leaders are committed to executing with speed and excellence to meet our customers’ generation needs.”

Initially, the joint venture will work on four projects supplying 5 gigawatts of power from combined-cycle power plants, which uses a combination of natural gas and steam turbines that produce additional electricity from natural gas waste. Electricity from these projects will be produced for power grids operated by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) and PJM Interconnection. The projects are scheduled to come online from 2029 through 2032.

The joint venture says the model it’s developing for these four projects is “replicable and scalable,” with the potential for expansion across the U.S.

The company is also developing a new 721-megawatt natural gas combined-cycle unit at its Cedar Bayou plant in Baytown, Texas. Read more here.

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