Solar investment fund NextEnergy Solar Fund has struck deals worth a combined £22 million to acquire two additional solar farms in the UK.
The company has signed share purchase agreements to acquire the special purchase vehicles which own the 9.3MWp Bowerhouse solar farm and the 8.5MWp Wellingborough solar farm.
Bowerhouse, located in Somerset and acquired for £11.1 million, was connected to the national grid on 27 March 2015 and is set to be accredited under the 1.4ROC regime, however the deal will only be completed upon receipt of a preliminary acceptance certificate which NextEnergy expects to receive later this month.
Wellingborough meanwhile was connected to the grid last March and is accredited under the 1.6ROC regime. NextEnergy will acquire the farm from developers Armstrong Energy for £10.9 million.
The deal will take NextEnergy’s total capacity to 234.5MWp which is spread across a total of 18 assets across the UK, and the company has also confirmed it continues to look for additional acquisitions.
“The Company is considering a number of additional acquisition opportunities which we will finance using our current debt facility. Given the extent of the portfolio under consideration, we expect to expand our debt facilities in short order to enable us to continue to close acquisitions rapidly on attractive assets as they mature,” said Kevin Lyon, chairman at NextEnergy Solar Fund.
The announcement serves as further evidence that the UK’s secondary solar market continues to heat up and comes just a day after asset management fund Aviva Investors signalled its intent to acquire small-scale solar farms in the UK having secured £131 million of commitments in its first close.