Spotlight |
Hydropower’s strategic newcomer
Agilitas Energy, the Boston-based renewable energy developer, is expanding into hydropower with two projects in the PJM (Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland) region. CEO Barrett Bilotta shares why the company is targeting hydro as part of its growth strategy, how this complements its solar and storage business, and what comes next.
AGILITAS ENERGY, A LEADING Independent Power Producer (IPP) that develops, builds, owns, and operates distributed energy and utility-scale energy storage and solar PV systems, has taken a significant step into a new market: hydropower. The Massachusetts-based company, which employs about 42 people and has established itself in solar and battery storage, announced earlier this year that it has acquired two late-stage hydropower development projects from Advanced Hydro Solutions. These acquisitions mark Agilitas Energy’s first entry
Above: Barrett Bilotta is the CEO of Agilitas Energy and co-founder and Managing Partner of Madbury Capital, the private equity affiliate of Agilitas Energy. He also serves on the Board of Directors and is a member of the Investment Committee.
Barrett leads the overall strategy of Agilitas Energy and oversees all functional business units, including development, EPC, asset management and operations, with a focus on deal structuring, project development, finance, and general management.
Barrett graduated from the University of New Hampshire and the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He retired as a Captain from the US Army National Guard.
into hydropower – and also its first projects in West Virginia and Maryland. The two projects are the 30MW Tygart Hydropower Project in Grafton, West Virginia, and the 14MW Jennings Randolph Hydropower Project in Garrett County, Maryland. Both facilities will deliver clean, baseload power into the PJM Interconnection, the largest regional transmission organization (RTO) in the US, serving 13 states and the District of Columbia. Agilitas Energy expects both plants to come online
in late 2028. Together, the projects’ combined capacity of 44MW will generate enough reliable electricity to power over 15,000 homes annually. The company acquired both assets at a late development stage, with the FERC licensing process already completed, allowing Agilitas Energy to focus on optimising the project execution and delivery timeline. For Barrett Bilotta, Agilitas Energy’s President and CEO, the move into hydropower is a natural next step that builds on the company’s experience with other renewables while positioning it for long-term value creation. “We’ve always been in solar and storage, and hydro was a really interesting step for us as we think about the broader renewable energy landscape,” Bilotta said during a recent interview.
A long-term play Bilotta explains that the company sees hydropower as
uniquely aligned with its vision of building a resilient and diversified clean energy portfolio. Unlike solar and storage assets, hydropower plants can provide baseload power that isn’t subject to daily or seasonal intermittency in the same way. Hydro assets – which often operate for decades or even a century – have unique staying power in a sector where many clean energy projects are typically designed with 20- to 30-year time horizons. “What really attracted us to hydro was its perpetual
nature – these projects can operate for 100 years,” Bilotta says. “That’s a very different asset class than what we’ve typically developed in solar and storage, which might have a 20- or 25-year useful life before needing major reinvestment or repowering.”
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www.waterpowermagazine.com This longevity, Bilotta notes, makes hydropower
particularly well suited to long-term ownership strategies. It aligns with Agilitas Energy’s shift toward holding more assets on balance sheet for long-term value rather than flipping projects or exiting post- construction. “We really think there’s tremendous long-term value in hydropower,” he says. “It’s a more capital-intensive investment upfront, but the long-run returns – and stability – make it worthwhile.” This long-term orientation fits well with how Agilitas
Energy views the evolving US energy market. The company sees growing demand for reliable, round- the-clock power, driven in part by new loads from data centers and other large energy users, particularly in the PJM region. “We’re seeing substantial growth in demand,
particularly from data centers, and hydropower can help serve that demand in a reliable, carbon-free way,” Bilotta says. “It’s a great fit with what we’re seeing in the market.”
Why PJM, why now The location of these initial hydropower acquisitions
is no coincidence. Agilitas Energy had already been active in PJM (Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland) through its other assets and sees the region as a place where its hydro investments can deliver strong value. “PJM is really the largest RTO in the country, and
it covers an area where there’s a lot of interest in renewables and a lot of demand for electricity,” Bilotta explains. “We’re already familiar with operating assets in PJM, so hydro is a great complement.” The fact that both projects were already FERC-licensed
and in late-stage development also played a role. “We’re not interested in taking on the full risk of greenfield hydro development,” Bilotta notes. “We were looking for projects where most of that heavy lifting had been done.” The acquired projects allow Agilitas Energy to enter
hydropower in a way that balances risk and opportunity. With regulatory approvals in hand, the focus is now on advancing toward construction and eventual operations. The two sites – one at the US Army Corps of Engineers’ Tygart Dam in West Virginia and the other at Jennings Randolph Lake on the North Branch Potomac River – represent a combined investment in reliable, long-lived renewable infrastructure. The Tygart project, for instance, will involve installing generating facilities at a dam originally built for flood control. By adding generation capacity to existing non-powered dams (NPDs), Agilitas Energy is helping unlock untapped renewable energy potential
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