Our History

IPPsolar was founded in the summer of 2008 in a tumultuous market environment where the near collapse of the global financial system resulted in a sudden and near-total elimination of financing sources for renewable energy projects.

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 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, the firm performed due diligence on over 600 alternative managers and assisted its clients in the deployment of over $150 million of capital. In addition, the firm built a portfolio of hedge funds for one of its clients, a family office based in New York.

2005: While the advisory firm was growing its activities and given its relationships with numerous sources of capital, the firm 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 Latam. Thus, in parallel with its alternative manager due diligence activity, the firm developed an activity to provide financial advisory services 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, the firm became involved in several projects including one of the largest power plant projects in Latam, a 1.2 GW gas-fired plant in Peru and several hydro-electric plants in Panama. In 2007, the firm was first exposed to the solar energy space by advising a company based in New Jersey that produced and sold 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 world, 2008 was an inflection point for many industries and companies. It was also when a confluence of factors drove the creation of IPPsolar. The financial markets witnessed an extraordinary disruption including extreme volatility in the price of oil. In the meantime, very favorable legislation was passed by Congress for renewable energy. Those factors led to to the launch of 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 operations, IPPsolar assisted its first client, EDiS, in the financing and construction of a 40 kW system in the company’s headquarters in Wilmington, DE.

2010: IPPsolar assisted Urstadt Biddle Properties (NYSE: UBA, www.ubproperties.com ), a relatively large REIT running about 5 million sqft of real estate, in the financing and installation of two projects at UBP sites (Wayne and Emerson) in 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 at Boscov’s shopping malls (www.boscovs.com) in Vineland, NJ. The project is expected to have a nameplate capacity of 962 kW.