Suntech’s parent company Shunfeng and its partner Greenfield Solar International have signed youmex to finance the PV project pipeline they are developing in the UK.
Solar Power Portal's sister site, PV Tech, reported in early May that the Shunfeng-Greenfield partnership is targeting 900MW of UK solar by the end of 2015. The two companies are seeking to build the solar farms exclusively using panels by Chinese manufacturer Suntech, which has been owned by Shunfeng Photovoltaic since April this year.
Youmex, headquartered in Germany, provides corporate and project financing for investment in real estate, infrastructure and capital markets, in addition to providing financial services for clean energy projects. Under the terms of the strategic alliance, youmex will provide construction loans and long term project financing, as well as being responsible for selling on completed projects to investors. Greenfield meanwhile, will provide engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) services for the projects.
“With its fully integrated transaction management of these three tasks, youmex speeds up and assures the whole process of financing and sales for one of the largest PV pipelines in UK,” claimed youmex head of corporate and structured financing Kai Hartmann.
Suntech said its 60-cell polycrystalline modules, which it claims work well under low or weak light conditions, were an appropriate fit for the UK market. Suntech chief executive officer Eric Luo said the modules “recently ranked above industry standards in a technical review conducted by UK-based consultancy OST Energy and received the VDE-Quality Tested certification, which recognises high quality products that go beyond existing standards in the photovoltaic industry.”