CIM OZ Fund Closes $972M Project Financing for California Solar and Battery Storage Facility
CIM Opportunity Zone Fund, L.P. has secured approximately $972 million in project debt financing for a utility-scale solar and battery storage facility in California’s San Joaquin Valley – the first major capital markets transaction from Westlands Electric Power Company, the consolidated solar platform the fund assembled during 2025.
The financing, which closed June 16, consists of four tranches: a $372 million construction loan, a $372 million term loan that converts from the construction facility upon completion, a $167 million bridge loan tied to investment tax credit transfers under Section 6418 of the Internal Revenue Code, and approximately $61 million in letter of credit facilities. Wells Fargo Bank serves as administrative agent and Truist Bank as collateral agent. The borrowing entities – Westlands Grape, LLC and Westlands Grape LandCo, LLC – are indirect subsidiaries of the fund held through Permanent Power Company LLC, an intermediate holding entity within the WEPCO structure.
The underlying project is a 246.4 megawatt solar photovoltaic generating facility paired with a 150 megawatt, 600 megawatt-hour battery energy storage system located in Kings County, Calif. The facility will operate under power purchase agreements, and the $167 million bridge loan is expected to be repaid with proceeds from the transfer of investment tax credits generated by the project under the Inflation Reduction Act’s tax credit transfer provisions.
That financing follows CIM’s consolidation of approximately $1.3 billion in solar project equity into WEPCO in September and October 2025, a three-phase transaction that consolidated the fund’s solar holdings under a single operating platform. As of Dec. 31, 2025, the fund owned approximately 66.7% of WEPCO directly or through subsidiaries, with WEPCO holding both operating solar projects and development assets expected to qualify for solar investment tax credits. The Westlands Grape project joins the fund’s existing California solar portfolio anchored by its Lemoore energy platform – the fund’s largest single asset, carried at a cost basis of approximately $1.15 billion.
The timing carries significance for the fund and for the broader opportunity zone universe. The fund launched in January 2019 as a Regulation D offering targeting qualified opportunity zone investments under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Early investors have reached or are approaching the seven-year hold mark that triggers a 15% basis step-up on deferred gains under the original program. The IRS issued Notice 2026-40 on June 18, establishing safe harbor guidance through 2047 for funds like CIM’s that hold investments in zones designated under the original 2017 framework, addressing a significant compliance gap created when Congress overhauled the opportunity zone program under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act last year.
CIM’s solar capital deployment reflects a pattern that has emerged among early-vintage OZ funds as the program matures: sponsors that made substantial infrastructure and energy investments in opportunity zones in 2018 and 2019 are now entering the construction and financing phase of those projects at scale, years after initial capital deployment. The $972 million debt package on a single project is among the largest single-asset project financings to emerge from the qualified opportunity zone universe – a measure of how far the asset class has traveled from a tax-deferral vehicle toward large-scale institutional infrastructure development.
CIM Group is a Los Angeles-based commercial real estate firm that sponsors nontraded direct investment programs. The fund reported net income of $78.7 million for fiscal year 2025, swinging from a $6.6 million loss in 2024, driven largely by a $117.4 million one-time realized gain tied to a new power purchase agreement structured as a sales-type lease.
For more CIM news, visit its directory sponsor page.
