Atrato Onsite Energy acquires 65 assets and pipeline projects from Sonne Solar

Atrato Onsite Energy has acquired 65 assets and pipeline projects from Macquarie Green Investment’s Sonne Solar.

The UK focused renewables listed investment trust, which trades under the ticker 'ROOF', has secured 100% of the shares of Sonne Solar including an operational portfolio consisting of 33MW of installed capacity across 32 rooftop and ground mount behind-the-meter (BTM) assets in the UK.

As well as this, the development portfolio consists of another 33 projects in the pipeline that are also part of a framework agreement with a single FTSE100 business.

“We’re delighted to announce these transactions. The Sonne operational assets are an immediate source of income for ROOF whilst the development portfolio provides attractive further pipeline,” said Gurpreet Gujral, managing director of Atrato Partners Limited, the investment adviser.

Atrato has also confirmed it has reached a financial close on a c.1MWp rooftop solar project which will additionally benefit from a 25-year power purchase agreement with a subsidiary of Recipharm. It is expected to be commissioned before the end of 2022.

These two transactions represent in excess of £31 million.

“The Recipharm transaction represents ROOF’s first project within the pharmaceutical sector. We are delighted to be able to provide Recipharm with a new rooftop PV system that will generate long term, low cost and fully traceable green energy,” said Gujral.

The new deals contribute to Atrato’s growing renewable portfolio having confirmed earlier this year that it would take on the development of a 20MWp solar project for Nissan after acquiring the company which started the project.

Hylton Plantation Solar had been established to develop the project for the car maker, but Atrato will now assume that responsibility after completing the £10.6 million transaction.

Last year, Atrato raised gross proceeds of £150 million though an oversubscribed Initial Placing, Offer for Subscription and Intermediaries Offer (IPO).

The company received investor demand covering the maximum IPO size – set at £150 million with that being the amount the company’s investment adviser believes can be deployed within a year – multiple times over, meaning a material scaling back exercise had to be undertaken.

Further projects are expected to be developed following the heatwaves in the UK along with the ongoing wholesale gas crisis. In fact, the Eco Experts disclosed a record amount for searches for “solar panels’ had been reached amid the heatwaves.

According to Google Trends on Thursday 11 August, the UK collectively reached a score of 100 for the first time searching for solar panels – an increase of over 100% from the previous two months’ average score.

This had led to renewable technology provider Shawton Energy seeing solar power enquiries rise ten-fold. Solar’s popularity continues to grow with renewable energy set to take centre stage in the energy transition in the coming years and Shawton is on track to deliver more than £50million of invested capital in high-quality solar projects over the next five years.