NextEnergy Solar Fund (NESF) has added a further four ground-mount solar farms to its portfolio while cutting medium- and long-term power price forecasts.
In an update issued this morning NESF confirmed it had invested some £30.9 million in four operational ground-mount solar farms situated throughout the UK. Those assets are:
- North Norfolk Solar Farm, 11MW at 1.6 ROCs;
- Axe View Solar Farm, 5MW at 1.2 ROCs;
- Low Bentham Solar Farm, 5MW at 1.2 ROCs, and;
- Henley Solar Farm, 5MW at 1.2 ROCs.
The latest deals take NextEnergy Solar Fund’s portfolio in the market to 569MW spread across 63 operational assets.
NESF has funded the acquisitions via the company’s existing financial resources and added that it expects to make further investments in due course.
In mid-2017 NESF bolstered its coffers with more than £125 million from an oversubscribed share placing which it has subsequently looked to reinvest in the market.
As well as operational sites, NextEnergy has also committed to purchasing shovel-ready assets with the aim of developing subsidy-free solar in the UK before the year’s end. Managing director Abid Kazim spoke on the subject of subsidy-free development at this week’s Solar Finance & Investment Europe conference, informing government that it needed to “exit stage left” for the industry to get to work.
Meanwhile the fund also confirmed that it has cut its medium- and long-term UK power price forecasts in a bid to reflect current market conditions.
Those changes have had a marginal impact on the company’s net asset value, taking it down from 105.1p per share to 104.7p.