From: Mercom Capital Group

Sonnedix, an independent solar power producer (IPP), has completed the acquisition of a 22.3 MW portfolio of solar PV projects located in Italy from Spanish IPP Solarig. The portfolio comprises 18 ground-mounted solar PV projects, all of them in operations since 2010 and 2011 and under the Italian Conto Energia feed-in tariff system.

Cubico Sustainable Investments (Cubico), a renewable energy investor, has completed refinancing of the Moron and Olivenza concentrated solar projects totaling 100 MW in Sevilla and Badajoz, Spain. The projects were acquired in March this year as part of the Grupo T-Solar portfolio and had a capacity of 50 MW, each completed with a green loan. The lenders club of mandated lead arrangers included; Aviva Investors, CaixaBank, Export Development Canada, ING, Rivage Investment, Santander Corporate & Investment Banking, and Societe Generale.

CIM Group, a lender and developer of real assets, closed debt and tax equity financing for its Aquamarine, 250 MW solar PV project in California. Deutsche Bank was the lead arranger of the debt financing. The project is part of the first phase of Westlands Solar Park, which will be fully operational by fall 2021 and is contracted to deliver 50 MW of capacity to Valley Clean Energy Alliance. Valley Clean Energy Alliance, a locally-governed electricity provider for the California cities of Davis, Woodland, Winters, and unincorporated portions of Yolo County.

Genex Power has reached a financial close for the 250 MW Kidston Pumped Storage Hydro Project (K2-Hydro). Financial close includes subscription of equity and full effectiveness of all project documents as well as the ARENA funding agreement and the NAIF loan facility. Financial close for the project follows settlement and allotment of 106,990,005 shares in Genex at $0.2337 per share to J-POWER, which now becomes the largest single shareholder in the company with a 10% interest.

Oesterreichische Entwicklungsbank, the Development Bank of Austria, has agreed to provide €10.3 million (~$12.56 million) for the construction and operation of the Hlyniany II project near Lviv, Ukraine, owned by ECO Optima Group. Dentons acted as Ukrainian legal counsel for the bank in the transaction. The project will produce 19.5 GWh of electricity annually, which will supply more than 6,000 households with green energy and save 300,000 tons of Co2.

ENGIE Romania, the Romanian natural gas retail company, completed the acquisition of an operational solar PV project, with a total installed capacity of 5.46 MW, located in the southern part of Romania, in the village of Nenciulești in Teleorman county, from a company owned by two German investors. The project commissioned in 2014 has since produced ~42 GWh, equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of 25,000 households.

London-listed investment company Renewables Infrastructure Group (TRIG) has agreed to acquire a 50% stake in two Swedish onshore wind projects to begin construction later this year. TRIG is buying wind projects from Nordic renewables developer Arise. InfraRed Europea Infrastructure Income Fund 4 will acquire the remaining stake in the wind projects. The projects, together called Twin Peaks, are in central Sweden and have a combined capacity of 242 MW.

CIT Group announced that its Power and Energy business served as coordinating lead arranger for around $200 million in financing for the 149 MW Big River solar project in White County, Illinois. The project sponsor is D.E. Shaw Renewable Investments, a part of the D.E. Shaw Group, and a provider of cost-effective renewable energy across North America. The projects are contracted under multiple purchase power agreements for most of the next two decades.

Spanish utility company Naturgy Energy closed a $280-million project finance with a group of international banks for 316 MW of wind and solar projects located in Chile’s Atacama desert. The 206 MW Cabo Leones II wind project and the 110 MW San Pedro solar project were connected to the grid in the fourth quarter of 2020 and began power supply at the beginning of this year.

For reports and trackers on funding and M&A transactions in solar, energy storage, smart grid, and efficiency sectors, click here.

Read last week’s project finance brief.