Solar manufacturing giant Canadian Solar has secured a £19.2 million loan to develop seven ground-mount solar farms in the UK.
The Ontario-headquartered firm signed the financing agreement with Royal Bank of Scotland, which provided a term loan to construct the plants which have a total installed capacity of 38MWp.
The additional capacity will take Canadian Solar’s UK portfolio to 78MW, and chief executive Shawn Qu said he was pleased to secure the financing facility and proceed with the development.
“We are also pleased with the execution of our energy business plan across all of our key markets as we continue to successfully develop, finance and build high quality solar energy assets in low risk geographies,” he added.
Its latest financing comes six months after the manufacturer closed a £35 million agreement with Investec to develop an initial portfolio of 40.2MW, projects which were then dropped into its yieldco.
While Canadian Solar has not disclosed the names or locations of the assets in question, yesterday Solar Power Portal revealed that the manufacturer had broken ground on a large solar farm in Scotland.
Scotland has not traditionally been a hotbed of PV activity but a large number of ground-mount installations are expected to complete amidst the ongoing Renewables Obligation rush, contributing towards a substantial uptick in total capacity north of Hadrian’s Wall.
