IPPsolar was founded in 2008 during the middle of the Great Recession with the world financial system teetering on the verge of collapse.
The founding team of IPPsolar first started working together in 2004 when Paul Jeun, Maziar Dalaeli and David Picard joined to launch an investment advisory practice (AIAS Group), advising institutional investors (pension funds, insurance companies, etc.) and family offices. The advisory work consisted in providing independent advice to investors looking to deploy capital in alternative investment vehicles such as hedge funds, funds of hedge funds, private equity funds, CTAs, commodity funds, etc. During the course of four years, AIAS performed due diligence over 600 alternative managers and thus assisted its clients in the deployment of over $150 million of capital. In addition, AIAS built a portfolio of hedge funds for a family office based in New York.
2005: While AIAS was growing its activities and given its relationships with numerous sources of capital, AIAS was approached by developers of traditional power plants (gas-fired and hydro-electric plants) in Latin America. Those developers were looking to gain access to financing sources in large money centers like New York and London for their projects. Hedge funds and private equity funds were deemed to be sophisticated investors best positioned to understand the investment risks in power projects in Latin America. Thus, in parallel to its alternative manager due diligence activity, AIAS began activities to raise financing for energy projects.
There were clear synergies between both activities because a recipient of capital could later deploy that capital in power projects.
In the following three years, AIAS became involved in several projects including in one of the largest power plant projects in Latin America, a 1.2 GW gas-fired plant in Peru and several hydro-electric plants in Panama. In 2007, AIAS was first exposed to the solar energy space by advising a company based in New Jersey that was selling manufacturing lines of thin film modules. That assignment was key in accelerating the team's upcoming focus on solar energy and the genesis of IPPsolar.
2008: Across the planet, 2008 was an inflection point for many industries and companies. It was also when a confluence of factors drove the AIAS team to form IPPsolar and was a natural fit for our team's extensive experience in energy project finance. The financial markets had witnessed extraordinary disruption, especially with extreme volatility in the price of oil. At the same time, very favorable legislation was passed by Congress to support and promote renewable energy. Those factors led the AIAS team to launch IPPsolar with the belief that there is no contradiction between building a profitable energy company and making the world a better place.
2009: After its first year of operation, IPPsolar assisted its first client EDiS in the financing and construction of a 40 kW system at their company headquarters in Wilmington, DE.
2010: IPPsolar assisted Urstadt Biddle Properties (NYSE:UBA www.ubproperties.com), a relatively large REIT holding about 5 million square feet of commercial real estate, in the financing and installation of two projects at UBP sites in Wayne, and Emerson, New Jersey.
2011: The two projects in Wayne (260 kW) and Emerson (285 kW) were successfully completed as planned. IPPsolar completed the financing (Power Purchase Agreement) of a first site for Boscov's department store (www.boscovs.com ) in Vineland, NJ with capacity of 962 kW.
2012: The IPP team broadens its scope of activity by launching a proprietary fund vehicle to finance commercial solar projects. In addition, the team founds its own EPC (Engineering, Procurement and Construction) activity through an affiliate and becomes a more vertically integrated enterprise.
2015: IPPsolar completes the development and installation of a dozen DC Fastcharge stations in New York and Connecticut, selling the entire network to NRG's Evgo unit.
2017: IPPsolar increases its market penetration by developing and installing projects within several new segments such as the industrial and not-for-profit customer space.