DURHAM, N.C. & AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Modern Energy announced today an investment of $30 million into the launch and multi-year deployment of Industrial Sun, an Austin-based utility-scale solar developer.
Industrial Sun founders Dan Seif and Wade Gungoll bring decades of experience in the energy industry, and collectively the senior team at Industrial Sun has successfully executed multiple gigawatts of project development, power sales, and financings for large-scale power projects. Industrial Sun is focused on providing power projects that create dramatic cost savings for large energy-using facilities.
“Modern’s experience developing, aggregating, and marketing assets across multiple technologies and regulatory regimes, along with their track record for building novel development platforms from inception to scale, was important to us in looking for a partner,” said Dan Seif. “Modern understands the challenges associated with development. We are confident their world-class operations team will contribute to our success in this competitive environment.”
“This partnership is based on a shared cultural alignment and a long-term orientation, which we believe are necessary to achieve a significant impact on the energy transition,” said Jazib Hasan of Modern Energy. “Today, many developers find themselves with a large and eager universe of buyers ready to purchase and operate portfolios but limited capital to help them build their operation. We act as a bridge between early-stage and operational assets.”
The Modern Energy team leverages deep functional expertise to support the rapid growth and effective market deployment of its portfolio companies. Industrial Sun is already thoroughly engaged in project development activities, including contracting optimal locations for assets, securing necessary permits, de-risking projects through engineering studies, navigating the interconnection process, and securing power offtake agreements. Modern provides Industrial Sun with world-class commercial, operational, and capital markets support, as it does with its other portfolio development companies.
Kirk Bedell and Jazib Hasan led the transaction for Modern Energy. Before joining Modern, Bedell spent a decade building clean energy development businesses across the United States — most recently, he established and led the distributed generation development business at Brookfield Asset Management and formerly built and led commercial strategy for General Electric’s distributed solar development business, which Blackrock acquired in 2019.
Before Modern, Hasan raised and invested capital in energy, infrastructure, renewables, and commodities — most recently at Citibank as its Head of Commodities Structured Finance and Credit Solutions. Prior to that, Hasan held similar executive roles at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Shell Energy North America and Deutsche Bank.
About Modern Energy
Modern Energy® is a clean energy company that invests in, builds and operates energy transition businesses to help the world reach a net-zero carbon economy. Modern’s portfolio includes fully-owned businesses delivering distributed energy solutions to customers and markets in the United States and Brazil. The firm has offices in Durham, NC, Austin, TX, and Sao Paulo, Brazil. As a certified B-Corp, Modern’s mission is affordable, reliable, sustainable energy for all. For more information, visit www.modern.energy.
About Industrial Sun
Industrial Sun is a renewable energy and storage developer, purpose-built to serve industrial and high energy demand customers, including refineries, pumping and compression stations, manufacturing and/or processing plants, terminals, and data centers. Our development team works with project landowners and surrounding communities to responsibly develop power projects that support the success of local communities for generations to come. Industrial Sun’s senior team shares more than 70 years of collective renewable energy experience and gigawatts of power project development, power sale, and financing experience. For more information, visit www.industrialsun.com.
