Think back to 2019. Fire destroyed Paris’ Notre Dame cathedral, anti-government protests erupted in Hong Kong, the Patriots beat the Rams in the Super Bowl. At the same time, solar power projects in the U.S. were booming, as declining prices and rising efficiency finally made solar economically competitive with fossil fuel-based generators.
Even so, the traditional sticking point remained: the sun doesn’t always shine. And the solution – battery energy storage systems (BESS) that hold solar-generated electricity for when it is needed most – remained an unproven technology from a commercial standpoint. At the time, no bank had ever yet financed a battery storage system.
None, that is, until the Energy Finance banking team -- then part of CIT and now part of First Citizens Bank -- broke the industry-wide logjam in March 2019 with financing for Macquarie's Green Investment Group.
That industry-first loan kicked off a burst of battery energy storage financings that continues to this day and that has put First Citizens Energy Finance at the forefront of one of the world’s most important clean energy trends.
In 2023 and 2024 alone, First Citizens Energy Finance arranged financings leading to $4.5 billion worth of combined investments in 17 battery storage projects. Collectively, they represent 4,200-plus gigawatts of energy storage capacity -- more than the output of four nuclear reactors.
These staggering numbers place the Energy Finance team at the very forefront of battery energy storage financing, even as it continues its longstanding renewable energy leadership – for which it has been recognized with a 2020 Gold Stevie Award for “Powering Sustainability with Financing,” and a 2020 award as Top Lead Arranger for Renewable Energy Financing by Power Finance & Risk.
What’s more, according to Infra Logic, a top industry data source on global infrastructure, First Citizens Energy Finance was No. 1 among U.S. banks in arranging financings for renewable power projects -- including both solar and battery storage -- for the two-year period of 2023 and 2024.
To Mike Lorusso, now in his 15th year as managing director and group head for the Energy Finance team, the remarkable growth of First Citizens’ BESS financings isn’t surprising. Instead, it’s a continuation of the team’s long-term commitment to anticipating what the energy industry needs next and swiftly offering financing solutions.
“We moved quickly to be ready with the right financing when renewable power plants were becoming commercialized and it’s been the same approach with battery storage,” Lorusso said.
“We want to be there for our clients as first-movers when new technologies appear and then continue to support them as those clean-energy technologies develop and reach full market acceptance,” he continued.
“That’s what we did with renewable power, especially solar, and that’s what we’re now also doing with battery energy storage systems, particularly over the last couple of years.”
Renewable energy financings aren’t like supersized car loans or home mortgages. Most projects involve loans worth tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of dollars and require an extreme level of due diligence and banking expertise to originate, underwrite, arrange and syndicate. And when a technology is new and relatively unproven, as it was in the early days with battery storage, the degree of difficulty rises astronomically.
First Citizens Energy Finance team has many megawatts of new financing projects in its pipeline. In a further demonstration of its financing leadership, First Citizens Energy Finance also recently announced it will offer tax equity financing to select renewable energy projects, including battery storage. The team also now encompasses the renewable energy project finance group of Silicon Valley Bank, which First Citizens acquired in March 2023.
With its ongoing financing prowess, First Citizens Energy is poised to continue to accelerate the growth of battery storage to help stabilize energy grids and promote cleaner environment nationwide.
Nomination Title: Financing the Battery Energy Storage Boom
