FORT Capital Resources and Rickly Hydro have created a model to efficiently implement small hydro projects while producing a healthy rate of return – and it continues to improve and scale.
With a 100-year history and established legacy in the hydro market, Rickly continues to evolve with the development of new technologies and site designs for the small hydro space.
“Making small hydropower growth a reality requires the right combination of technology, design and finance,” said Ryan Cook, Managing Director of Rickly Hydro. “FORT has been a great partner and crucial in providing the finance ingredient to the equation. Through bringing a combination of discipline, creativity, and execution while navigating the capital markets, they’ve consistently delivered the right structure for building these projects. It puts us in a great position to continue to scale our model and add to our portfolio of power producing assets.”
Cook added, “Hydropower brings unique value to the rapidly growing renewable energy market, but not much hydro was getting built because it cost too much and took too long. Our combination of equipment, design process, and modular systems lower the cost, time and risk of deploying hydropower assets. This supports not only an initial focus on expanding capacity of existing assets but also powering non-powered dams of which there are nearly 77,000 in the U.S. We’re happy to have FORT as a partner in this effort.”
Having a mission of “making it awesomely easy to implement small hydro,” Rickly and FORT have been taking a pragmatic approach to building a model to scale. Now in the midst of closing on their fifth hydropower plant together, they are more excited than ever to continue the expansion of the success they’ve built together.
“It’s been a very rewarding experience for us,” said Brian Fleming, Managing Member of FORT. “We set out from the beginning to build a strong foundation and model to scale. We’re aligned on a vision, have a very unique combination of expertise to achieve our goals, and share in a core set of values...great ingredients for building something significant together.”
Rickly has technology, manufacturing capability and design expertise to unlock the value of small hydro sites. Ultimately, it is able to reduce both project costs and implementation timelines, making projects more economically feasible. With a combination of risk mitigation and financial product structuring, FORT is able to provide the capital required to make the projects go.
Cook said, “The world needs power, there’s 77,000 dams in the US that can contribute to making that power, and we’re making that a reality.”