PVTIME – US power sector investment firm Hull Street Energy has reached financial close on its purchase of a 1.4GW clean energy asset portfolio located across the northeastern United States. This expands its holdings of dispatchable, low-carbon generation and flexible energy storage infrastructure.
The transaction covers FirstLight’s operating business in the United States, which was divested by Canadian pension investor PSP Investments. Contrary to its broad categorisation as purely wind, solar and storage, the portfolio is anchored by the 1,168MW Northfield Mountain pumped-hydro storage plant in Massachusetts, the largest energy storage facility in New England. It also incorporates fourteen run-of-river hydroelectric stations spread across Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania, as well as three live solar-plus-battery installations in the region. Canadian assets belonging to FirstLight remain under PSP Investments’ ownership and are outside the scope of the deal.
FirstLight’s US operational staff will transfer to Hull Street Energy as part of the handover. The completed purchase strengthens the buyer’s exposure to firm, grid-stable clean resources, a category which is growing in strategic importance as New England retires fossil fuel plant capacity and integrates higher volumes of variable wind and solar generation. System reliability margins in the regional power market have tightened in recent periods, increasing the value of long-duration assets that can deliver on-demand power during supply shortages.
Rather than greenfield development rights, this deal adds substantial existing operating capacity to Hull Street Energy’s balance sheet. For infrastructure investors, acquiring fully commissioned hydro-storage and renewable plants offers predictable cash-flow profiles while creating scope for optimisation work to enhance asset performance. The firm has built up a substantial hydropower fleet through targeted acquisitions across North America, and this latest deal further strengthens its focus on clean power infrastructure, which is critical to regional grid stability.
