Bethesda private equity firm Hull Street Energy has closed on a $1.1 billion institutional fund. The oversubscribed fund is only the second institutional fund to date for the energy transition investment company, and twice the size of its first.
Hull Street Energy’s core business is acquiring middle-market power plants across North America, including traditional plants and those based on renewable resources. The new fund — Hull Street Energy Partners II LP — closed at the end of March, three years after the company pulled in $500 million for its first fund. Already, the 8-year-old company has begun making investments with its new fund, including in Canadian firm SunGrid Solutions, a battery energy storage company. Hull Street didn’t disclose the size of that investment.
The firm declined to comment for this story.
The company’s first fund has now been completely deployed, and with that money, Hull Street has acquired hydroelectric assets, thermal power plants and solar projects across the U.S., it said in a release. Those include hydroelectric power plant owner and operator Central Rivers Power, which has plants in the Columbia, Connecticut, Hudson, Merrimack, Mississippi, Sacramento, Savannah and St. Lawrence river basins, according to Hull Street’s website. It also owns natural gas power plant owner Milepost Power — which it purchased in 2017 for $106 million — and D.C. solar power development company Foundation Solar Partners, according to the firm’s website.
New investments will follow a similar pattern as those made in the past, a source familiar with the company said. That means continuing to buy power plants and other energy-related assets the team of investors believe are being undermanaged and investing to make them more profitable and efficient. “The firm is differentiated by its deep understanding of local and regional physical electricity markets and grid operations, and its highly quantitative approach to evaluating and managing power sector assets and businesses,” the company said in a statement.
Greater Washington’s clean technology sector recently ranked sixth out of 40 metro areas in the country, according to study from Saoradh Enterprise Partners, a Boulder, Colorado, research and venture capital firm. The clean tech industries the study evaluated were renewable energy, advanced materials, energy storage, smart grid, new mobility, designed environment, carbon and minerals, industry edge and clean food. Among clean tech companies, the study found 75% of venture capital funding went toward companies in New York, California and Massachusetts. The researchers did, however, identify the Washington region as having “a high capacity for further growth” in clean technologies.
