Renewable Energy Developer to Private Equity?

I am about to start my third internship as a summer analyst at a renewable energy (solar, wind, hydrogen) developer on their business / project development team and have really enjoyed the work but I've gone this route over something like IB. This has granted me lower pay prospects but max 50 hour work weeks when working on deals, however I am starting to consider the PE route post 1-2 years of work experience too and would like to hear if others have experience with this. 2/3 I have worked at have been backed by massive PE funds (KKR, GIP, Blackrock), and a few on my team are ex-IB, do lots of IB people go to renewable shops now? Or is the transition the other way easy / even possible? Would a stint in IB be more beneficial, I have a decent grasp of tax equity and debt modeling but I imagine way less than someone who has worked on these deals in IB. Any help is greatly appreciated as there seems to be very little talk of this online. 

 

Not 100% clear on your role at your current firm, but if you are in a traditional project development role at a developer I think it is highly unlikely you would be able to land an investment role in private equity due to a lack of modeling experience. Your best bet would be moving over to the project finance/acquisitions side of the developer and then trying to lateral to a renewables focused PE/infra fund. Or you could try to get a PF role at bank and then move from there to a PE role.

 

You're right that I am not doing a whole lot of finance (25% of my time is modeling), its more just getting projects through development in a traditional sense, I am hoping to pivot in my upcoming internship into more project finance and M&A and come on full time on the business development team which handles all of the finance. The only thing is that this seems like a more back office role depending on the firm where the actual project developers are the ones making the deals. If I am able to get into project finance, would that give me a better shot at PE? Im also open to DM if you are to discuss details.

 

Every development shop is different, but in my experience business development is focused on signing offtake agreements not on finance. Yes, project finance would give you the best chance to get into private equity, but it will definitely be an uphill battle as most PE shops recruit from banks not developers.

 
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