Reinvestment Fund has $12.5 million to back clean-energy projects

Companies working on clean energy tech or renewable energy projects can now tap into a $12.5 million fund from Philly-based Reinvestment Fund, the social enterprise lending entity with offices in Baltimore and Atlanta.

Out of the new fund, the nonprofit is looking offer financing to small and mid-sized projects looking to focus on energy efficiency, renewable energy and other clean energy technologies that “otherwise have limited access to traditional capital markets,” the company said Thursday.

The first capital in the fund comes by way of a MetLife subsidiary, which pumped $10 million into the fund. The remaining portion was kicked in by Reinvestment Fund. The loans of up to $3 million should be repaid in 15 years, and mainly look to make capital available to energy-retrofit projects backed by Energy Savings Agreements, contracts under which a provider retrofits, at their own expense, a customer’s property with clean energy technology and then manages its energy usage.

“For well over two decades, we have been committed to using our resources to support projects that benefit struggling communities and are sustainable for the environment,” said Don Hinkle-Brown, president and CEO of Reinvestment Fund. “This new fund allows us to channel affordable, longer-term capital to small and mid-sized energy retrofit projects nationwide that will generate valuable energy savings year after year as well as improve health and environmental conditions in the communities we serve.”

The Fund has already doled out the first loan to Chicago-based Affordable Community Energy Services Company so it may deploy energy efficiency and water conservation technology in 90 low-income housing buildings in California.