PV projects developer Lightsource Renewable Energy and Octopus Investments have secured a £54.4 million refinancing package for six solar parks with a combined capacity of 23MW.
The projects are located across the South East and West of England at Wilburton (5.0MW), Howton (5.0MW), Hawton (4.9MW), Marston (4.5MW), Benbole (1.7MW) and Sandhill (1.9MW).
The £54.4m debt facility, which was co-funded by Dutch bank NIBC and the Royal Bank of Scotland Corporate & Institutional Banking (RBS CIB), includes £37.4m from RBS CIB.
RBS CIB has been expanding its presence in the UK solar market having funded 50MW of solar capacity to date. This latest transaction represents RBS CIB’s third completed solar transaction in the last twelve months.
Andrew Buglass, Head of Energy, Structured Finance at RBS, said: “We are delighted to support this project which represents a significant deal for Royal Bank of Scotland, and further endorses the expertise of our team. We have a pipeline of deals in the project finance UK solar space that we are currently working on. While we continue to see refinancing opportunities under the feed-in tariff regime the majority of current opportunities are larger scale projects under the Renewables Obligation.”
Nick Boyle, CEO of Lightsource, added: “We are delighted to have received this funding package from RBS and NIBC, which is another fantastic milestone for Lightsource and which will hopefully lead to many more similar financings for our solar development portfolio.”