Tom Heintzman was a founder of Bullfrog Power, which collects premium power prices from Canadian consumer and business clients, in return for injecting renewable electricity into the grid.Kevin Van Paassen/The Globe and Mail
Toronto private equity firm JCM Capital has recruited Tom Heintzman, the former head of clean-energy distributor Bullfrog Power, to run a new equity fund dedicated to investments in solar power projects in developing markets.
The new Clean Power Infrastructure Fund will eventually invest as much as $150-million in solar projects in Latin and South America and sub-Saharan Africa. It has already got a lead investor to put in $15-million, and will try to raise a total of $50-million by the end of this year, mainly from institutional investors such as pension funds and other organizations interested in Third World development.
Mr. Heintzman was a founder of Bullfrog Power, which collects premium power prices from Canadian consumer and business clients, in return for injecting renewable electricity into the grid. It also sells premium-priced gas from renewable sources. He ran the organization from 2004 until last year, when he left and turned the organization over to a new chief executive officer.
Mr. Heintzman will also become managing director of JCM's infrastructure group. He said the new fund will provide investors with "the steady cash flows of infrastructure combined with the growth of emerging markets."
In Africa alone, he said, estimates suggest more than $40-billion of new electricity generation capacity is needed each year to support economic growth.
JCM already runs several funds that invest in solar projects, and is a backer of a $1-billion project to build a privately-owned underwater transmission cable across Lake Erie to carry electricity from Ontario to the north-east United States.