Annapolis, Maryland – New Energy Equity LLC announced that they have signed a definitive agreement to sell one hundred percent of its membership interests to ALLETE, Inc. (NYSE:ALE).

“The New Energy Equity team is excited to join the ALLETE family of companies, bringing broadened expertise and access to capital to New Energy Equity,” said the company’s Co-founder, President and CEO, Matthew Hankey. “ALLETE is an incredible organization that shares in our company’s core values, including a focus on sustainability, long-term partnerships, and a workforce culture that promotes and values employee contributions. With our combined experience, we can expand the reach of distributed-generation solar and storage projects to provide more sustainable energy solutions for our communities, industry partners, and customers. We look forward to joining forces with ALLETE to help further the clean-energy transformation together.”

New Energy Equity, established in Annapolis, Maryland in 2013, is one of the country’s leading distributed solar developers, having successfully completed more than 250 projects across the nation totaling more than 310 megawatts. New Energy Equity also offers comprehensive solar operations, maintenance, and asset management services to its customers through its wholly owned subsidiary, Energy Support Services.

“New Energy Equity’s business model—developing, financing, and selling a large number of small projects annually—complements ALLETE’s other businesses that typically focus on larger, utility-scale projects. With its flexible capital needs, attractive cash flow and earnings accretion characteristics, we believe New Energy Equity is a strong value proposition for ALLETE and its investors,” said ALLETE Chair, President and CEO Bethany Owen. “We are very excited to welcome the talented and experienced New Energy Equity team to ALLETE as we continue, together, the sustainable journey toward a clean energy future—for our customers, communities, employees, and investors.”

“We are thankful to our partners, customers, and team members for their support in making this transaction possible. It’s an exciting time to be in alternative energy. We have enjoyed working with the New Energy Equity team and are grateful to have found a partner in ALLETE that will allow New Energy Equity to expand capabilities for its customers and opportunities for its team members. This is a true win-win-win scenario for all parties,” said Gautam Chandra, Chairman of New Energy Equity and co-founder and Managing Director of SmartPitch Ventures, LLC, majority owner of New Energy Equity.

New Energy Equity and ALLETE expect the purchase to close in mid-April upon satisfaction of customary closing conditions, including compliance with Hart-Scott-Rodino antitrust clearing requirements. New Energy Equity’s entire team, including management and its Minnesota-based subsidiary, Impact Power Solutions, will remain in place, as will the company’s Maryland headquarters and Boulder, Colorado office.

Lazard Freres & Co. LLC and Foley & Lardner LLP acted as advisors to New Energy Equity, J.P. Morgan and Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP acted as advisors to ALLETE on this transaction.

About ALLETE, Inc.

ALLETE, Inc. is an energy company headquartered in Duluth, Minnesota. In addition to its electric utilities, Minnesota Power and Superior Water, Light and Power of Wisconsin, ALLETE owns ALLETE Clean Energy, based in Duluth; and BNI Energy in Bismarck, N.D.; and has an eight percent equity interest in the American Transmission Co. More information about ALLETE is available at www.allete.com/.

About New Energy Equity 

Founded in 2013 and headquartered in Annapolis, Maryland, New Energy Equity develops and finances solar power generation assets, providing clean electricity to commercial, industrial, municipal, and utility customers under long-term contracts. New Energy Equity has successfully developed over 300MW of solar projects and closed more than $600MM in clean energy investments. The company was ranked as the 7th Top Solar Developer and the 8th Top Solar Contractor on Solar Power World’s “2021 Top Solar Contractors” list and was voted as one of the fastest-growing energy companies in D.C., Maryland, and Virginia by Inc. Magazine. To learn more, visit www.newenergyequity.com/.

About Energy Support Services 

Founded in 2014, Energy Support Services was originally established to provide O&M and Asset Management support for internally developed and constructed C&I solar projects by New Energy Equity in the great State of Minnesota; Energy Support Services now operates in more than 15 states with over 170 MW of projects under contract with more than 30 different customer entities. Our monitoring and asset management teams are headquartered in Annapolis, MD, with most of our field technicians residing throughout Minnesota.