ACCIONA Energía, a renewable energy company, secured an AUD$453 million (~$287.85 million) syndicated loan facility to construct its 480 MWp Aldoga solar project on the central Queensland coast in Australia.
The company secured the facility through Cesce, the Spanish export credit agency, under its green investment policy.
Four banks provided the loan facility, including Banco Santander, BNP Paribas, ING, and J.P. Morgan. Banco Santander served as the Cesce agent and ING as the environmental, social, and governance coordinator.
The company is responsible for developing, engineering, constructing, managing, operating, and maintaining the solar project, which features 820,000 solar modules. The total investment in the project is estimated at AUD$670 million (~$425.75 million).
Project construction began in late 2023, and commercial operation is expected to start by mid-2026. The operation and maintenance phase of the solar project will last 30 years, and the door-to-door term of the loan covered by Cesce will be 15.5 years.
Stanwell Corp., Queensland’s publicly owned energy company, has signed a 15-year power purchase agreement. It plans to use all the energy produced by the solar project to supply its green hydrogen project, Central Queensland Hydrogen, which is expected to commence operations in 2028.
Once operational, the project will produce enough clean electricity to supply nearly 185,000 households annually.
In 2023, ACCIONA Energía announced the acquisition of a majority stake in Solideo, a provider of self-consumption and solar energy solutions for residential customers and small and medium-sized enterprises in Spain.
According to Mercom’s Annual and Q4 2024 Solar Funding and M&A Report, large-scale project funding in 2024 increased 21% year-over-year.
This month, NorthStar Clean Energy, a renewable energy project developer and a wholly owned subsidiary of CMS Energy, secured up to $334 million in construction-to-term financing for developing two solar projects in Michigan.
