The clean energy industry has had plenty to contend with since President Donald Trump resumed office: rapidly fluctuating tariffs, financial market chaos, and both rhetorical and practical attacks on Joe Biden’s policies to support decarbonization efforts.
Despite those headwinds, stalwart Tennessee-based solar developer Silicon Ranch closed a major equity investment this month, raising $500 million from Danish fund AIP Management. Notably, Silicon Ranch hadn’t even gone out for a fund raise, Chief Commercial Officer Matt Beasley said. But, after CEO Reagan Farr met AIP members by chance at a conference in New York last year, the conversation evolved, and soon Silicon Ranch leaders were flying to Copenhagen to close the deal.
The developer’s last fund raise was $600 million at the start of 2023, under entirely different macroeconomic circumstances: The economy was bouncing back from Covid, and Biden had recently signed the Inflation Reduction Act, unleashing hundreds of billions of dollars to bolster clean energy deployment. In contrast, Silicon Ranch’s most recent cash influx comes as the Republican-led Congress ponders whether to eliminate those same tax credits during this year’s budget-making process in Washington.
As an infrastructure investor, AIP has the leisure to look for returns over longer time horizons than, say, a venture capital firm. But Silicon Ranch is planning for growth even amid the Trump-era conditions: The company has already more or less tariff-proofed its operations and is working hard to meet power demand spurred by the same AI growth trend the Trump administration has championed.
Buying domestic solar panels avoids tariff disruption
The U.S. has been levying tariffs on Chinese solar panels since the Obama administration, when China’s industrial policies boosted manufacturing and helped push American solar manufacturers out of business. U.S. solar developers and installers have adapted to that reality, but lately, tariff policy is changing by the week if not the hour.
Trump announced radically higher tariffs on most of the world in early April. The so-called reciprocal tariffs were slated to hit the Southeast Asian countries that have become major sources of U.S. solar imports since earlier tariffs effectively blocked China. Days later, though, Trump backed down on his “Liberation Day” threat, at least temporarily. But a separate tariff proceeding at the Department of Commerce has just concluded and slaps tariffs up to 3,521% on solar panels from Cambodia, and less astronomical but still substantial rates on Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam.
“We’re pretty well insulated from the tariffs,” Beasley said. That’s because the company already reoriented its strategy to buying domestic equipment, in response to the supply chain disruption of the Covid era.
In April 2022, Silicon Ranch unveiled a master supply agreement with First Solar for 4 gigawatts of U.S.-made modules, and subsequently doubled down for another 2.2 gigawatts. That deal built on a longstanding relationship: Silicon Ranch was the first to install First Solar modules in the Southeast, Beasley noted.
The developer also signed a parallel agreement in May 2022 with Nextracker to buy 1.5 gigawatts of U.S.-made solar trackers — which tilt panels toward the sun throughout the day — and later added another 3 gigawatts. That deal anchored Nextracker’s decision to open a torque-tube manufacturing line in Memphis, Tennessee, localizing production of the key component in utility-scale solar trackers.
