UNITED STATES - Morgan Stanley has put together a $200m (€135.9m) solar project fund to invest with Recurrent Energy and provide solar power to institutionally-owned real estate across the country.

The fund represents a commitment by Morgan Stanley to provide financing for $100m of Recurrent's solar electric power projects in 2008 and an additional $100m in 2009, according to Edward Levin, vice president at Morgan Stanley.

"Our company is excited to work with Recurrent Energy to finance its solar power solution for institutional property owners. This company's unique approach to the rooftop solar market, in conjunction with the federal and state agencies, creates an innovative and economic solar solution to the marketplace."

Arno Harris, chief executive officer of Recurrent Energy, further added: "We look forward to putting this new fund to work quickly to help our clients transform empty rooftops into value-generating, sustainable assets."

The fund will be doing some business with office buildings in a variety of markets around the country. These assets are held by mixed investor-types, including pension funds and Reits.

Recurrent will be responsible for the installation and the maintenance of the solar products and at first glance there is no additional cost to the property owner.

However, Recurrent does negotiate a lease agreement on the roof space for every building and there is then a payment sent to the property owner. This creates a new revenue source for the property owner without creating any additional cost.

Recurrent calls this proposition ‘Solar as a Service' and says it enables customers to cost-effectively reduce their use of fossil-generated electricity across large property portfolios.

One of the potential long-range benefits to this is properties could potentially be sold at a higher price by having solar power attached to them.

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