American Electric Power and PNM Resources have agreed to sell New Mexico Renewable Development, their 50:50 solar joint venture, to Exus. Leap records the portfolio at 625 MW. Only about 185 MW of it was generating power on the day the deal was announced. The rest was a development pipeline, and that is where the price has to be read.
Key takeaways
- American Electric Power (AEP) announced on 26 December 2023 that it and PNM Resources agreed to sell 100 percent of their joint venture New Mexico Renewable Development (NMRD) to Exus North America Holdings; the deal completed on 27 February 2024.
- Leap's record of the NMRD sale leaves the structured deal value undisclosed, while its narrative cites an equity consideration of $230 million, split roughly $115 million each to AEP and PNM Resources.
- AEP expects to receive about $104 million in cash from the NMRD sale after tax, fees and adjustments, against a book value of $119 million for its NMRD investment as of 30 September 2023.
- NMRD's 625 MW portfolio comprised nine operating solar projects totalling about 185 MW and six solar projects under development totalling an estimated 440 MW.
- After the acquisition, Exus signed a 140 MW PPA with Meta for the TAG solar and storage project in January 2025 and secured $312 million of debt from Credit Agricole and ING for its construction.
Why did AEP and PNM Resources sell NMRD?
Both sellers were steering capital towards regulated utility operations. AEP described the sale as part of a strategy to simplify its business and concentrate on core regulated operations. PNM Resources' share of the proceeds goes towards funding its regulated capital investment.
NMRD was small inside AEP. Its assets contributed $0.01 to AEP's earnings per share in the company's 2023 operating earnings guidance. A business that size absorbs management time without moving the group's results, which makes it a natural candidate for disposal.
The sale also continued an exit already under way. In February 2023 AEP sold its unregulated renewable assets to Invenergy, Blackstone and CDPQ for $1.5 billion. The companies announced the plan to sell NMRD in June 2023, six months before the agreement.
What does the book value tell a buyer about the price?
Book value is the amount at which a company carries an investment on its balance sheet, usually close to the cost of building or buying it, less depreciation. It is not a market price, but it is a useful anchor when the market price is hard to read.
Here the anchor is close. AEP's half of the equity consideration is about $115 million, against a book value of $119 million. After tax, fees and adjustments AEP expects about $104 million in cash. In other words, AEP sold its share at roughly its carrying value, not at a visible premium for the development pipeline.
That matters because most of NMRD was pipeline. Of the 625 MW, about 440 MW was under development. The operating side included the 55 MW Encino solar energy center, the 50 MW Britton solar energy center, the 50 MW NMRD Data Center III project and the 10 MW Facebook 1 project. A price near book suggests the sellers were paid mainly for what was built, with little separately visible value for what was not.
How did Exus turn the pipeline into contracted capacity?
By building it with a large corporate offtaker and project debt in place. Enerdatics understands the NMRD projects sell power under corporate PPAs. A corporate PPA is a long-term contract under which a company, rather than a utility, agrees to buy a project's output at a set price. NMRD already had that relationship: in 2018 PNM agreed to buy 100 MW from NMRD to keep serving Facebook's data center in New Mexico.
Exus extended it. In January 2025 it signed a PPA with Meta, formerly Facebook, for 140 MW from the TAG solar and storage project, which Leap links to the NMRD acquisition. In the same month it secured $312 million from Credit Agricole and ING to build TAG. Leap records the 140 MW TAG solar project and a 50 MW TAG battery as operational from August 2025. In July 2025 Exus also secured about $150 million from ING Capital and PNC Capital Markets for its operational Zia solar portfolio, also linked to the deal in Leap.
The sequence shows where the value sat. The sellers were paid around book value. The buyer then contracted, financed and built part of the pipeline within about 18 months of completion.
Enerdatics' data shows 72 M&A transactions for operational US solar assets announced in 2023 and 2024, of which only 17 carry a usable price per MW. Their median is $1.25 million per MW. The NMRD sale is one of the 55 that do not, because Leap's structured deal value is blank and the portfolio mixes operating plants with development projects. A per-MW figure for a portfolio that is 70 percent pipeline would compare it with deals it does not resemble.
What does the deal signal for US solar M&A?
It signals that utilities exiting unregulated renewables are prioritising a clean exit over capturing pipeline value. AEP and PNM Resources took a price near book and handed the development upside to a specialist owner. For an investor like Exus, that is the opportunity: buy operating cash flow at a fair price and get the pipeline with it.
The pattern fits how Exus has grown since. It later raised a corporate facility to fund development spend across its US pipeline, covered in Enerdatics' analysis of the Exus $400 million facility, and bought a developer to originate projects itself, as set out in Enerdatics' analysis of the Ozone acquisition.
It also shows the limits of headline prices in US solar M&A. With fewer than a quarter of operational deals carrying a usable price per MW, book values, cash proceeds and later financings are often the best evidence of what a portfolio was worth.
Frequently asked questions
Who bought New Mexico Renewable Development?Exus North America Holdings agreed to acquire 100 percent of NMRD from AEP and PNM Resources, which each owned 50 percent. The deal was announced on 26 December 2023 and completed on 27 February 2024.
How much did Exus pay for NMRD?Leap's structured deal value is undisclosed. Its narrative cites an equity consideration of $230 million, with about $115 million to each seller, and AEP expected about $104 million in cash after tax and fees.
What did the NMRD portfolio include?Nine operating solar projects of about 185 MW, including Encino, Britton and NMRD Data Center III, and six solar projects under development with an estimated 440 MW of capacity.
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