TEESS, a 50:50 joint venture company established by TotalEnergies and Envision Group, has announced the financial close for the first part of a total $80 million non-recourse debt for a 170 MW solar portfolio in China.

The lenders include BNP Paribas, Société Générale, Natixis, and Crédit Agricole Corporate and Investment Bank.

The lending marks the first international non-recourse project financing in China’s renewable sector. It is also the country’s first green financing project in the commercial and industrial (C&I) segment in the solar sector.

TEESS said this was also the first green loan in China to be certified by a third party, Sustainalytics, an environmental, social, and corporate governance rating company.

“Based on our corporate mission and strategic goals, we have built an open and transparent business operation system. Adhering to the principle of sustainable development, we hope to play a more active role in green investment projects in the future, continue to promote China’s zero-carbon economic transformation, and create long-term sustainable value for the environment, society, and enterprises,” said Sun Jie, CEO of TEESS.

Established in 2019 by TotalEnergies and Envision, it was launched to develop on-site distributed generation solar projects for B2B customers in China.

TEESS has 140 MW of projects in operation and targets a portfolio of over 500 MW of projects in operation in the next two years. It also invests in digitization and pilot projects on solar and behind-the-meter energy storage solutions. TEESS will offer its clients a combination of distributed solar energy systems and digital solar energy solutions running on Envision’s AIoT Operating System EnOS™.

Commenting on the closure Shalen Shivpuri, Co-Head of Loans and Specialized Finance, APAC at BNP Paribas, said, “Distributed solar projects tend to be individually small-scale and therefore uneconomical to finance separately, but in this case, we were able to offer an innovative structure to fund this portfolio of rooftop solar projects on a non-recourse basis. This deal is expected to pave the way for financing further such projects in China.”

Recently, TotalEnergies had announced the results for the second quarter (Q2) of 2021 and the first half (1 H) of 2021. The company’s consolidated net income stood at $2.29 billion for Q2 2021, increasing by 127% compared to a loss of $8.42 billion during Q2 2020. For 1H 2021, the consolidated net income rose 167% with $5.71 billion, compared to a loss of $8.42 billion during the same period the previous year.

In January this year, Total acquired a 20% minority interest in Adani Green Energy for an investment of $2.5 billion.