Solar and infrastructure investor NextPower UK ESG (NPUK) revealed on Friday (4 October) that it has signed one of the UK’s largest solar sleeved PV power purchase agreements (PPAs) with utility Anglian Water Services covering the 75MW Llanwern solar PV power plant in Wales.
The sleeved PPA is a 20-year inflation-linked contracted revenue agreement that covers 90% of the electricity and any associated Renewable Energy Guarantees of Origin (REGO) certificates from the Llanwern solar PV project.
Situated in Newport, the PV project is recognised as one of the largest solar power plants in operation in the UK market.
A four-way physical contract, the sleeved PPA involves NPUK, one of the funds owned by renewable energy investor NextEnergy Capital, selling energy generated from the Llanwern solar PV project to Anglian Water Services. It also involves energy companies SSE and EDF.
EDF will take the power generated from Llanwern, balance, firm and convert it into baseloads of power, to then be sleeved to AWS via its energy supplier SSE.
Michael Bonte-Friedheim, CEO and founder of NextEnergy Group, believes the structure will help provide future growth opportunities for solar PV.
“This 20-year sleeved PPA fits perfectly into NextPower UK ESG’s contracted revenue strategy and demonstrates the future growth opportunity that solar serves in providing long-term power generation to both utilities and corporates as they increasingly look towards renewable energy sources as part of their decarbonisation journey,” Bonte-Friedheim said.
NextPower UK ESG recently energised its third utility-scale solar PV asset, the 24MW Penlow project in Essex, which increased the fund’s operating capacity to 139MW. NextPower UK ESG has a portfolio of ten utility-scale solar PV projects in the UK with a combined capacity of 497MW.
Following NPUK’s strong opening to 2024, NextEnergy Capital, headquartered in London, has been bolstering its global solar and energy storage pipeline. In March 2024, its solar and battery energy storage-focused fund, NextPower V ESG, secured US$110 million (£85.75 million) in capital funding, including £77.9 million from a European pension fund.