Australian renewable energy developer Edify Energy and German group Wirsol have successfully completed Australia’s largest single solar project financing to build and operate three new large-scale solar farms: the Whitsunday and Hamilton Solar Farms in Queensland, and the Gannawarra Solar Farm in Victoria.
When complete in Q1 2018, the Queensland and Victorian markets will benefit from an additional 198 MWp of renewable capacity, including the first large-scale solar farm in Victoria.
The transaction marks Australia’s largest single solar project financing deal. A long-term syndicated $232m debt facility will be provided by the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC), the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) and NORD/LB; the long tenor of this financing is rare for a domestic commercial bank lending to renewable projects.
Mark Hogan, MD of Wirsol Energy Limited said they are thrilled to announce the successful acquisition and refinancing of this portfolio as it marks their first move into the Australian renewable sector.
“We believe this transaction demonstrates the importance of bringing together industry knowledge and local expertise to successfully develop, construct and finance largescale renewable projects,” he said.
“We will continue building on this success and are actively seeking to acquire further development opportunities to fulfil our internal ambition of deploying 1GWp solar across Australia by 2020.”
Edify Energy CEO John Cole is confident that investment in large-scale renewable energy will become more common place.
“Transactions such as this demonstrate that the combination of project development and structuring expertise, and investment confidence is once again present in the Australian renewable sector.”
The Whitsunday Solar Farm is supported by the Queensland Government by way of a 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA) under its Solar 150 Program and the Commonwealth Government through the award of an ARENA grant of up to $9.5 million in September 2016. The Gannawarra Solar Farm will benefit from a long-term PPA with EnergyAustralia. The Hamilton Solar Farm is co-located with the Whitsunday Solar Farm and has been financed on a merchant basis including a short-term contract with ERM Power.
Construction on all three projects will commence shortly, with the townships of Collinsville, Queensland and Kerang, Victoria exhibiting strong community support to date and expecting to benefit from a peak of 200 and 100 jobs across the two sites respectively. The construction of the Whitsunday and Hamilton Solar Farms will benefit from the international experience of French firm Bouygues Construction.