ET Energy has announced it successfully built six solar farms totalling 26MWp in the UK prior to the closure of the Renewables Obligation on behalf of funds managed by Octopus Energy Investments.

As the development arm of ET Solar, the company acquired the development rights to the projects during 2016 before selling them to Octopus funds at the end of the year.

The projects, located across England, Wales and Scotland, were then delivered on a turnkey basis before the 31 March deadline by subsidiary, ET Solutions, to be eligible for 1.2 ROCs.

Dennis She, president and chief executive of ET Energy, said: “With these six UK solar projects, we have demonstrated again that we are capable of delivering high quality, investment grade solar project assets. They represent another example of our execution capabilities, as well as the success of our transition into the downstream segment of the market.”

Octopus has emerged as the UK’s largest owner of solar assets following 18 months of intense activity in the construction and secondary markets. It recently secured what it claims to be Europe’s largest solar PV refinancing deal in reference to total of £484 million for a 522MW portfolio of UK-based solar assets.

Speaking about the ET Energy projects, head of renewable energy at Octopus Investments Matt Setchell said: “The 1.2 ROC subsidy cliff made this a challenging project. As ever the March deadline placed pressure on construction timetables. Our solar experience, together with ET Energy's development and construction capabilities, proved a successful combination.

“We're pleased to add these projects to our continually growing clean energy activities.”

With the closure of the RO, new UK large-scale solar developments will rely on the ability of companies to deploy on a subsidy-free basis.

Speaking at last month’s Managing European Solar Assets conference Sam Reynolds, investment director and head of energy investments at Octupus, said the company had already been approached by developers pitching subsidy-free assets.