Hive Energy yesterday (5 March) secured a new £19 million bank guarantee facility from Santander, supported by UK Export Finance (UKEF), to boost its international solar and battery energy storage system (BESS) portfolio.
The Hampshire-based renewable energy developer stated the guarantee would allow Hive to deliver new and existing renewable energy projects with an immediate focus in Türkiye, Poland, Croatia and Serbia.
UKEF, the UK’s export credit agency, supported Santander with a guarantee from its General Export Facility scheme. According to the release, this product has helped UK firms – primarily small and medium enterprises – to access over £325 million in working capital since its launch in 2020.
Solar and BESS are not the only technologies that will be bolstered via this partnership. Indeed, Hive stated that the new bank guarantee facility will help develop new facilities to produce green hydrogen and green ammonia, with core projects in South Africa, Spain and Chile.
The bank guarantee means that Hive Energy can move forward with its renewable projects, confident that the facility will cover losses in the event of unforeseen financial issues.
Roy Naismith, chief financial officer of Hive Energy, said: “This support from UKEF and Santander has allowed an acceleration in our drive to increase global production of renewable energy. We now have additional financial capacity to ramp-up activity in Türkiye, Serbia and other territories helping us to deliver clean energy more quickly and more widely in our mission to reduce global carbon emissions.”
Hive’s international solar expansions
Hive Energy has been progressing its international solar portfolio, primarily across Europe, whilst dipping into markets further afield. A core element of its strategy is developing projects for sale, which Hive has done successfully throughout 2023.
As reported by our sister publication PV-Tech, Hive Energy agreed on a deal to sell four solar projects with a combined capacity of 267MW to German solar developer Juwia.
Located in Central Greece, the projects were acquired by Juwi’s Greek unit Juwi Hellas and developed to ready-to-build status by Hive Energy. As reported, Juwi confirmed it would begin construction in the first quarter of 2024.
Across the Ionian Sea, Hive Energy confirmed in July 2023 that it would sell 200MW worth of Italian agrivoltaic PV projects to GreenIT, a renewable energy joint venture between Italian energy provider Plenitude and investor CDP Equity.
Under the terms of the agreement, Hive brought the projects to a ready-to-build stage, at which point the portfolio was taken over by GreenIT to be built and maintained. The projects were built in the southern regions of Apulia and Sicily and the central region of Lazio.
Alongside Europe, Hive has also cast its eyes internationally to identify global opportunities. In 2021, the renewable developer became one of three UK companies to launch a joint venture dedicated to developing a pipeline of nearly 350MW of utility-scale PV plants in New Zealand.
Hive joined Ethical Power and Solar South West in establishing the joint venture, dubbed HES Aotearoa, with the firms combining their knowledge in areas spanning site selection, project design, construction, operations and maintenance.