Birch Creek has closed a financing package for Earp, a 49 MW solar farm in Warren County, Illinois. Tax equity comes from Foss & Company and debt from two banks. The power price is on the public record because Google signed for the output months earlier. The size of the financing is not, and that gap is the most useful thing about the deal.
Key takeaways
- Birch Creek secured a hybrid financing package for the Earp solar project in Illinois, announced on 24 June 2024, combining tax equity from Foss & Company with debt from West Town Bank & Trust and Pathward.
- The Earp project had previously obtained $25 million in development debt, and the amount of the June 2024 financing package has not been disclosed.
- Google signed a long-term offsite corporate power purchase agreement for the 49 MW Earp project in the MISO market at a fixed tariff of $54/MWh, with renewable energy certificates bundled with the energy.
- Payment under the Google contract is subject to adjustments based on MISO locational marginal price differentials, and the project reached commercial operation in June 2024.
- Enerdatics records 13 hybrid financings for US solar projects announced in 2024, of which three carry no disclosed amount, and two of those three belong to Birch Creek.
What did Birch Creek actually raise for Earp?
Birch Creek raised a stack rather than a single loan. A hybrid financing, in Leap's terms, is a package that combines more than one type of capital for the same project. Here the two layers are tax equity and bank debt, and each does a different job.
Tax equity is an investment made by a party that wants the project's federal tax credits and depreciation more than its cash flow. The investor takes most of those tax benefits in the early years, then hands back control of the economics once it has earned its return. For a developer without a large tax bill of its own, it is the standard way to turn credits into construction money. Foss & Company fills that role on Earp.
The debt sits alongside it. West Town Bank & Trust and Pathward are not names that appear on the large syndicated loans behind utility-scale projects. Their presence fits the size of the asset. A 49 MW plant on 229 acres is small enough for a single bank balance sheet to hold, and that is the end of the market where Birch Creek operates.
None of the three providers has disclosed an amount. What Leap does record is the earlier layer: $25 million of development debt raised before construction. The June package replaces or sits above that early money and carries the project through construction into operation.
Why does the Google contract matter more than the financing amount?
Because lenders size their commitment against contracted revenue, and the revenue here is unusually visible. Google's agreement is an offsite corporate power purchase agreement, meaning the plant is not on Google's premises and the electricity is delivered through the grid. The fixed tariff is the anchor every lender would have modelled.
The contract also bundles renewable energy certificates and future environmental attributes with the energy. That matters to the buyer, which wants the clean-energy claim, and to the lenders, because it removes a second revenue line the project would otherwise have to sell on its own.
The adjustment clause is where the risk sits. Settlement depends on differences in MISO locational marginal prices, the wholesale price at specific points on the grid. If the price where Earp injects power diverges from the price at the point the contract settles, someone absorbs the gap. Basis risk of this kind is the main reason two projects with the same headline tariff can carry very different debt capacity.
What does the financing say about Birch Creek's business model?
Leap records that the funds will cover construction and operation of Earp, supporting Birch Creek's transition toward an independent power producer model.
A developer usually sells a project once it is permitted and contracted. An independent power producer keeps it, operates it and lives off the electricity revenue for decades. The difference shows up in the capital stack. A seller needs development money and then a buyer. A long-term owner needs tax equity to monetise the credits it cannot use itself, and debt it can carry against twenty or more years of cash flow.
Earp has exactly that structure. So does Altona, the second Birch Creek solar project in Leap with a hybrid package, announced in August 2024 with West Town Bank & Trust and Celtic Bank. The repeat lender suggests a relationship rather than a one-off arrangement.
Enerdatics' data shows how unusual Birch Creek's silence is within its peer group. Across 181 financings recorded for US solar in 2024, 13 are classed as hybrid packages. Ten of them carry a disclosed amount, together worth about $4.65 billion, ranging from $93 million for Pacifico Power's California portfolio to roughly $1.09 billion for Vesper Energy's Hornet project in Texas. Of the three with no amount, two are Birch Creek's Earp and Altona deals. Tax equity on its own appears in 25 US solar financings over the same year, totalling about $4.24 billion.
What does the deal signal for small US solar developers?
The deal signals that the developer-to-owner path is open at small scale, provided the offtake is clean enough to finance against. A 49 MW plant with a fixed price from a buyer of Google's scale is close to the ideal case for a smaller lender. Earp did not need a syndicate of global lenders. It needed a contract and a tax equity partner willing to work at that size.
Foss & Company's role points the same way. The firm has appeared in other Leap records as a buyer of credits from larger sponsors, including Tokyo Gas' sale of tax credits on the Longbow battery in Texas. Its willingness to commit tax equity to a sub-50 MW Illinois plant suggests the tax equity market reaches further down the size range than headline deals imply. Selling credits outright is the other route, as Schneider Electric's purchase of ENGIE's Texas tax credits shows. Birch Creek chose the partnership instead.
The missing number is the cost of that choice for anyone benchmarking. Without disclosed amounts, the small end of US solar finance is priced from the larger deals that do publish, which overstates scale and probably understates the cost of capital. Birch Creek's two packages are a reminder that a meaningful share of the market's activity happens where nobody is required to say how much was raised.
Frequently asked questions
Who financed the Earp solar project?Foss & Company provided tax equity, and West Town Bank & Trust and Pathward provided debt, in a hybrid package for Birch Creek announced on 24 June 2024. The project had earlier raised $25 million in development debt. The size of the June package has not been disclosed.
Who buys the power from Earp Solar?Google buys the output under a long-term offsite corporate power purchase agreement at a fixed tariff of $54/MWh, with renewable energy certificates bundled in. Payment adjusts for MISO locational marginal price differentials. The 49 MW project connects to Ameren Illinois and reached commercial operation in June 2024.
What is a hybrid financing package?A hybrid package combines more than one type of capital for the same project, most often tax equity and debt. The tax equity investor takes the project's tax benefits, while the lenders are repaid from contracted revenue. Enerdatics records 13 such packages for US solar in 2024.
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