Our History

Our company was founded

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HASI began in September 1981 as Eden Hannon Goodwin & Company out of the firm’s first headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia. The company was among the first to utilize the “tax-exempt” lease to finance capital equipment upgrades for state and local governments.

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The first closed transaction was a $300,000 Motorola communications system for the Petersburg, Virginia Police Department, and the company’s early financing focused on telecommunications, information technology, and energy equipment vendors.

Jon Armstrong joins the company and first federal transaction

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Entrepreneur and former naval aviator R. Jon Armstrong joined the firm, bringing federal contracting experience that helped expand our client offerings. This year also marked our first financing transaction with the U.S. Federal government, which involved telecommunications equipment for the FBI.

Jeff Eckel joins the company

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During his first stint with the company, from 1985 to 1989, Jeff Eckel served as senior vice president and in the new energy project finance group.

First renewable energy transaction and first third-party financed energy efficiency asset for the U.S. government

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Refinanced the Solar Energy Generating Systems III plant, a 30-megawatt concentrating solar plant in California, to provide capital to develop SEGS VII and VIII. That same year, we pioneered the use of third-party capital for government energy efficiency projects with a 25-megawatt cogeneration plant at the Department of Energy facility.

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Firm renamed "Hannon Armstrong" and Eckel’s congressional testimony

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The company renamed Hannon Armstrong after the departure of Greg Eden. That same year, Jeff Eckel testified before the U.S. Senate Energy Subcommittee on how to expand energy performance contracting in the Federal government.

First energy savings performance contract financed

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Hannon Armstrong financed its first of many energy service performance contracts (ESPCs) with $1 million ESPC for a lighting upgrade at the U.S. Postal Service building.

Jeff Eckel returns as CEO, HannieMae Trust is launched

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Jeff Eckel returned to Hannon Armstrong after leading Wärtsilä Power Development and EnergySource, with high-efficiency power systems and renewables in emerging markets, and the company’s headquarters was moved to Annapolis, Maryland. That same year, the company closed the Hannon Armstrong Multi-Asset Trust (also known as “HannieMae”), the first securitization vehicle for financing energy savings performance contracts.

Investment in undersea fiber optic systems

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The company provided $40 million for an undersea fiber-optic communication system from Svalbard, Norway, an island above the Arctic Circle, to a facility on the mainland of Norway. The fiber-optic network transmits weather and environmental data to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Department of Defense, and NASA.

HannieMae exceeds $1 billion of ESPC financings

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The HannieMae securitization vehicle surpassed the $1 billion mark, achieving this milestone through 32 separate fundings, 191 transactions, and 860 energy conservation measures for 14 energy service clients. The transactions were enough to offset the energy equivalent of .1% of all U.S. cars (129,000) on the road.

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Management buyout of Hannon Armstrong and 100% employee ownership achieved

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Following Jon Armstrong’s untimely death in 2005, management recapitalized the firm with the private equity firm Mission Point Capital. Every employee became an owner of the new firm.

Clean energy financing during financial crisis

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Despite the DJIA's decline by 34% in 2008, the company still provided over $700 million in financing to clean energy assets in 2008 and 2009. Additionally, the firm developed the 49.9 MegaWatt Hudson Ranch geothermal project in California. The $400 million project was awarded the 2010 Project Finance Magazine's 2010 North American Geothermal Deal of the Year.

Debut as a public company

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Recognizing that climate change is a defining issue of our generation and that finance has much to contribute to the adoption of low-carbon technologies, we became a public company—Hannon Armstrong Sustainable Infrastructure Capital—traded under the ticker “HASI” on the New York Stock Exchange on April 18, 2013. We believed then, as we do now, that the opportunity to finance the decarbonization of the economy is enormous, as industries like the +100-year-old electric utility sector evolve into more sustainable business models.

First Sustainable Yield^® bond issuance

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Hannon Armstrong sold $100 million of its first series of asset-backed Sustainable Yield Bonds™ (HASI SYBs). The transaction securitized the cash flows generated by over 100 individual wind, solar, and energy efficiency installations, all with investment-grade obligors.

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CarbonCount^® scoring tool launched

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Working with the Alliance to Save Energy, Hannon Armstrong introduced CarbonCount: a scoring tool that evaluates investments in U.S.-based energy efficiency and renewable energy projects to predict how effectively they will reduce CO2 emissions per $1,000 of investment.

First publicly rated asset-backed securitization

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In September 2015, Hannon Armstrong completed an offering of A-rated (Kroll) Sustainable Yield Bonds, secured by a portion of its utility-scale solar and wind real estate. It was the winner of the First Green Bond Asset-Backed Securitization, as recognized by the Climate Bonds Initiative.

Jeff Lipson joins the company and inaugural corporate debt rating

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Jeffrey A. Lipson joined the firm as CFO, bringing extensive financial services experience as the former CEO of Congressional Bank (now Forbright Bank).

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This year was also marked by Hannon Armstrong receiving a corporate long-term issuer credit rating of BB+ from S&P Global Ratings and Fitch Ratings. Fitch further rated the Company’s senior secured revolving recourse credit facility as investment grade at BBB- and its unsecured convertible note at BB+. Hannon Armstrong had previously received an investment-grade rating of BBB (low) from DBRS for its long-term issuer rating and its senior secured revolving credit facility.

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Resilence during the pandemic

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2020 was an exceptional year of growth and impact for the firm. Despite the pandemic, Hannon Armstrong posted record Distributable Earnings, transaction volumes, and carbon impact. In July, we announced a $553 million investment in a 2.3 GW portfolio of U.S. wind and solar projects operated by ENGIE. In December, we announced a $663 million investment in a 1.6 GW wind, solar, and solar-plus-storage portfolio developed and managed by Clearway Energy Group.

• Invested $1.7b in climate solutions
• 800k MT of incremental annual reductions in carbon emissions through our closed transactions
• Raised >$1.5b in CarbonCount-based debt
• Declared Social Dividend of $1.6m to support Hannon Armstrong Foundation

• Invested in a 1.3 GW portfolio of 17 operating solar projects and one operating wind project owned and operated by AES, a Fortune 500 global energy company, and one of the largest developers and operators of clean power in the U.S.
• Made first investment in RNG with a portfolio of operating Renewable Natural Gas Projects (RNG), including two Landfill Gas (LFG)-to-RNG plants and one Wastewater Treatment Biogas (WWTPB)-to-RNG plant
• Named to the global environmental non-profit CDP's 2022 'A List' for our climate positive leadership and exceptional environmental disclosure performance. HASI was one of 283 companies that achieved an 'A' out of the more than 15,000 companies scored

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Appointed Jeffrey Lipson as President and CEO of HASI. Our previous CEO, Jeff Eckel, assumed the role of Executive Chair

• Adopted HASI as official company brand name and unveiled new logo and brand identity
• Launched CarbonCount® 2.0 methodology to give a more precise assessment of avoided emissions via newly available locational marginal emissions (LME) factors that reflect the grid composition specific to each project's location at the time of generation
• Celebrated the 10th anniversary of the HASI stock listing by ringing the bell at the New York Stock Exchange

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Established a $2 billion strategic partnership with global investment firm KKR to invest in sustainable infrastructure projects

• Secured an investment grade rating of BBB- from Fitch Ratings, HASI’s second investment grade rating from a major credit rating agency