NTE Energy closes financing for 475 MW Project in North Carolina

NTE Energy has announced that its affiliate NTE Carolinas, LLC (NTE), has successfully closed on project financing for construction and operation of its Kings Mountain Energy Center, located in Cleveland County, North Carolina.

Financing for the facility includes a group of 9 financial institutions, led by ING Capital LLC and MUFG Union Bank, N.A, providing $387 million in various senior secured credit facilities and Capital Dynamics and Wattage Finance-NC, LLC providing $218 million in equity commitments.

The Kings Mountain Energy Center will be a state-of-the-art 475 MW natural gas-fired electric generating facility that will sell capacity to nine municipal and state owned utilities in North Carolina and South Carolina, under individual Long - Term Power Sale Agreements.

Gemma Power Systems, LLC will build the facility under an Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) Services contract and NTE Energy Services Company, LLC will be the construction and asset manager. The facility will comprise Mitsubishi’s GAC turbine technology in a combined-cycle configuration. 

Seth Shortlidge, CEO of NTE Energy, stated:

“The project’s successful financing showcases the accomplishments of our team and partners, as well as the public private partnership with the City of Kings Mountain and numerous municipal and state entities in the Carolinas who will be served by the project. NTE is excited to work with this group of lenders and industry leaders on the financing and construction the Kings Mountain Energy Center.”

John Breckenridge, Managing Director at Capital Dynamics, commented:

“Capital Dynamics is extremely pleased to have successfully partnered with NTE and Guggenheim again to bring this important project to fruition. This project is an example of the kind of critical clean power infrastructure projects that our team brings from development to completion. We also congratulate the local communities that have supported this project for enabling a low cost, clean and reliable source of power for their citizens for many years to come.”

ING Capital LLC (Syndication Agent) and MUFG Union Bank, N.A. (Administrative Agent), acted as the Coordinating Lead Arrangers in developing syndication of 9 total institutions to finance the project. Nixon Peabody and Pierce Atwood served as NTE’s project counsel.