Close over $100 million in commitments from NGP Energy Technology Partners III and management
SAN FRANCISCO, July 14, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Solar energy industry veterans David Riester and Joseph Song have launched Segue Sustainable Infrastructure to provide development capital to renewable energy and energy storage projects. Riester previously led project finance for Cypress Creek Renewables and co-founded GSSG Solar and Lacuna Sustainable Investments. Song led the engineering team at SunEdison and later held an executive leadership role at Sol Systems where he oversaw engineering, development, and operations. Combined across their careers, they have developed, designed, or financed over 8 GWs of projects currently operating across 35 states. Riester and Song are actively building out the team and expect to announce multiple senior additions in the coming weeks.
“Significant value is created during the development phase of a project. Yet the market for capital willing to support this value-rich phase of the lifecycle is thin, erratic, and opaque” said Riester. “Too many developers with great ideas are forced to sub-optimally capitalize their projects, sell out too early, or abandon their projects altogether. We are going to offer a better path.”
“We bring both finance and technical expertise, plus years of pattern recognition, to project development,” said Song. “We’ve been doing this for years, so we know development is messy: essentially a couple years of troubleshooting and course-correcting followed by monetizing the cleaned-up asset as best you can. We like to navigate these choppy waters together with the development partners we back.”
Segue will let project/partner opportunities drive market selection, believing that developer and project quality are more important than the markets in which they operate. The firm will focus primarily on utility-scale and community solar sectors, though Riester and Song’s SunEdison roots will keep large-scale C&I in the picture.
With over $100 million of initial capital commitments from NGP Energy Technology Partners III (“NGP ETP III”) and the Segue management team, Segue is positioned to start making investments immediately.
NGP ETP III, an affiliate of NGP Energy Capital Management (“NGP”), invests in opportunities associated with the transition to a lower-carbon future. Growing renewable energy generation is a critical part of this transition. “We are excited to partner with the Segue team to capitalize this hard-to-reach market segment,” said Sam Stoutner, NGP Partner. “Their unique strategy and approach offer a way to inject capital into projects right where and when it’s needed, which we believe will simultaneously generate good returns and catalyze the clean energy transition.”
About Segue Sustainable Infrastructure
Segue Sustainable Infrastructure invests in development-stage renewable energy projects and the infrastructure enabling them. Our team capitalizes, de-risks, optimizes, and monetizes projects to allow developers to capture more value. For more information, please visit www.segueinfra.com.
About NGP Energy Technology Partners III
NGP ETP III invests in innovative technology companies with products, services or technologies serving the renewable energy, power, energy storage, energy efficiency, environmental, and transportation sectors. NGP ETP III is affiliated with NGP Energy Capital Management. Founded in 1988, NGP is a premier investment franchise in the energy industry, with over $20 billion in cumulative equity commitments organized to make strategic investments in the energy and natural resources sectors. NGP’s 32-year history gives it unique insight into the drivers of value creation in all facets of the energy industry. For more information, please visit www.ngpenergycapital.com.