European solar power producer AMPYR Solar Europe (ASE), a joint venture between AGP Sustainable Real Assets, Hartree Partners, and NaGa Solar, secured €400 million (~$454.7 million) facility from CarVal Investors to develop over 2 GW of the solar projects by 2025.
The initial focus will be on Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK. The facility can expand to other European states and allow for the funding of energy storage projects.
CarVal has made available an initial tranche of €250 million (~$284.2 million) and a further incremental tranche of €150 million (~$170.5 million). This facility will mainly cover the construction costs of solar projects and provide development capital and operational expenses.
“One year after its inception, we couldn’t be prouder to have reached this key milestone in ASE’s journey to become a leading European solar IPP,” said Andrew Gould, Executive Chairman of ASE.
“With the support of CarVal as our capital partner, we are on a steady path to turn our fast-progressing pipeline into a portfolio of large-scale solar power-producing assets that will contribute meaningfully to Europe’s energy transition,” he added.
ASE expects to start construction of phase I of the projects in the second quarter of this year and be operational by the end of the year.
Akereos Capital acted as sole bookrunner, structure, and debt advisor to AMPYR, also advised by Reed Smith (legal). CarVal was advised by Norton Rose Fulbright (legal), ARUP (technical), and Baringa Partners (commercial).
According to Mercom’s recently published Q4 2021 solar funding and M&A report, announced large-scale project funding came to $18.7 billion in 185 deals in 2021 compared to $18 billion in 167 deals in 2020.
In November 2021, U.S.-based large-scale renewable energy project developer Intersect Power secured $2.6 billion in financing commitments to support the construction and operation of six projects with 2.2 GW of solar and 1.4 GWh of storage capacity. Intersect Power had secured $1.4 billion of portfolio level, term debt funding from HPS Investment Partners and co-investors, along with existing Intersect investors CarVal Investors, Generate and Climate Adaptive Infrastructure.
