Finnish renewables investor Korkia has announced the sale of one of its development subsidiaries’ projects to NextPower UK.
Korkia’s development company, Climate ER Helio, a joint venture (JV) between Korkia and solar developer Climate ER, has sold its Mere Flates project, a 56MWp solar PV plant co-located with 16MW battery energy storage to NextPower UK, a fund managed by global investor NextEnergy Capital.
Located in South Yorkshire, it is the first of the JV’s nine-project solar and battery energy storage system (BESS) portfolio in the UK to reach a ready-to-build stage, fully consented and with the key permits and land rights in place.
Korkia and Climate ER Helio were advised on the sale by PKF Francis Clark and TLT with vendor due diligence by GA Solicitors and eSmart Networks.
Pauli Mäenpää, CEO of Korkia said that the company has many projects set to reach the ready-to-build stage this year after 2024 was “a record year for investments in the renewables sector globally”.
Korkia has an independent development pipeline of over 130 projects over eight countries, with country-specific partnerships like Climate ER Helio in the UK. In March last year, it partnered with solar developer Global Consulting Energy to develop a 1GW Italian solar PV portfolio, focused on greenfield and brownfield solar PV development.
Globally, Korkia’s focus is utility-scale ground mount solar PV, BESS and onshore wind.
Climate ER Helio’s director James Spooner said the UK is a key market for Korkia and added that this is not the first transaction the company has completed with NextEnergy—the two have also closed in Spain and Chile.
Investment director UK for NextEnergy Capital, Spyros Sfantos, commented: “As the UK Government pledges to ramp up solar power capacity from 16GW to 70GW by 2035, NextPower UK and the team at NextEnergy Capital are in a great position to capture this growth.”
NextPower UK’s portfolio reaches 731MW
Sfantos noted that the transaction marks NextPower UK’s (NPUK’s) fifteenth acquisition, bringing the fund’s portfolio capacity to 731MW. Last year, it made three acquisitions in November alone.
The fund first launched in December 2021and now has 249MW operating solar assets in the UK. It says it is on track to hit over 400MW operating capacity this year and that, when fully deployed, NPUK’s portfolio will exceed 1GW of solar capacity.
Earlier this week, NextEnergy Capital announced that at its final fundraising close, NPUK had raised £733 million, almost 50% over the targeted fundraise of £500 million. The UK government’s National Wealth Fund (NWF) was the ‘cornerstone’ investor in NPUK, investing £250 million on a match-funding basis.
