Chinese vertically integrated solar PV company Trina Solar has announced the sale of its flagship 49.99 MW U.K. solar plant to British investment company Bluefield Solar Income Fund (BSIF) via a Bridge Loan Facility.
The sale has netted Trina $87.7 million and is in "full alignment" with the developers strategy to build and sell power generation assets in overseas markets, a company statement read.
"This is the third utility-scale solar power plant that we have constructed and sold in the U.K. for a cumulative capacity of 73.76 MW, demonstrating our global team capabilities in project development and execution," said Trina Solar CEO and chairman, Jifan Gao.
The sale was conducted with a Bridge Loan Facility Agreement for BSIF, which is to be used to finance the project until the sale is completed.
The plant, located in Norfolk in the east of England, is the largest single solar farm in the U.K., and is powered by 196,627 Trina Solar modules. It was completed in the third quarter of 2014 and connected earlier this year in time to qualify for the renewable obligation (RO) certificate at 1.4.
Gao added that Trina is also pursuing a similar development strategy in Japan and, potentially, other markets that have shown similar solar promise. The aim is to utilize monies raised in such downstream activity to pour into further project development.
"With accelerating momentum in our domestic and overseas markets, we are on track to meet our 2015 target to connect a portfolio of projects totaling between 700 MW to 750 MW," said Gao. "Thanks to powerful synergies between our module and downstream businesses, we are confident that we will achieve our 2015 overall targets and solidify our leading position in the global solar energy solution business."
Trinas bustling downstream sector helped boost the companys 2014 revenue by 29% on 2013 levels, with the strength of its U.K. activities proving particularly pivotal.
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.