972: How Smart Solar Developers Treat Land as Growth Capital | Laura Pagliarulo

Could the land beneath your solar project help finance the next one, without giving up equity in your company?

Laura Pagliarulo, CEO and co-founder of SolaREIT™, returns to SunCast to share what six years of financing solar and battery real estate have taught her about how developers grow without overextending themselves. Her company has financed real estate beneath projects representing nearly $8 billion in total value.

Laura explains how land purchases, lease purchases and land loans can provide flexible capital without selling equity in the developer's company. She describes repeat partners planning transactions six to eighteen months before a portfolio closes, with proceeds supporting interconnection deposits and other pipeline needs.

Expect to learn:

🔹 How project real estate fits into a broader capital strategy

🔹 What experienced developers understand about their financing partners' limits

🔹 Why battery sites can carry substantial value on a small footprint

🔹 How Laura built a repeatable operating playbook while resisting distracting opportunities

The conversation also goes inside SolaREIT's own growth: raising $50 million of equity during COVID without an in-person investor meeting, earning institutional backing, and using AI to help the team draw on knowledge that previously lived in Laura's head.

For anyone building projects or scaling a clean energy business, this is a conversation about finding more options and knowing which ones to use.

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