Community energy company, Big60Million has had three of its solar bond offers certified under the global Climate Bond Initiative (CBI) standard.
The CBI standard confirms to potential investors that the funds are being used to deliver climate change solutions. Big60Million’s Atherstone Solar Farm Ltd (15MW), Southam Solar Farm Ltd (10MW) and Paddock Solar Farm (9MW) all secured certification under the CBI standard.
The official validation report stated that the 34MW of solar projects “will achieve resource efficiency consistent with avoiding dangerous climate and will contribute to Low-Carbon Economy and are therefore eligible to be certified under the CBI standard.”
Reacting to the news, Paul Camp, finance and business development at Big60Million said: “We are delighted that our three Big60Million projects, Atherstone, Southam and Paddock Wood have been certified under the Climate Bond Initiative global standards programme. Partnering with Foresight Group, one of Europe’s largest yieldco’s proves that community investors and professional investment funds can work successfully in partnership with both recognising the value in operational solar farms built by Belectric.”
Camp’s views were echoed by Ricardo Pineiro, director of Foresight who explained that the “innovative partnership of institutional and community finance will act as a template for further co-investment opportunities as we seek to increase the community involvement in solar power generation in the UK”.
However, the Conservative government has enacted wide-ranging changes to solar PV’s support mechanisms at all scales which threaten the viability of community solar schemes. In response to a potential severe reduction in feed-in tariff rates for solar, Phil Powell, director of Gwent Energy CIC told Solar Power Portal that his community model was “now dead”, stating that the “proposed tariffs will barely cover the administration costs alone”.