Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ) and solar developer Lightsource BP, which is majority owned by British Petroleum (BP), have announced a joint debt investment of £150 million ($194.4 million) to finance Lightsource BP's solar portfolio.
CDPQ, Canada's second-largest pension fund, said the sum will initially be used to finance a portfolio of over 100 solar energy assets located across several countries, with an aggregate capacity of around 700 MW. It said it may also make additional investments in Lightsource BP's pipeline.
“This transaction is perfectly aligned with CDPQ’s willingness to participate in the energy transition, primarily by investing in low-carbon assets, as we have just increased our investment target for these assets by 2020,” said Marc Cormier, CDPQ’s executive vice-president, fixed income.
The Quebec-based pension fund, known in English-language media as La Caisse, acquired a 20% stake in Indian solar company Azure Power for $75 million in January 2017. In addition, it agreed to provide U.S. solar installer Sunrun with $40 million in November 2017, just months after providing Canadian rooftop solar specialist Potentia Renewables with $83 million.
In May 2018, CDPQ took a majority stake in U.S.-based Invenergy Renewables. Last October, it also increased its stake in Azure Power to 40% through a $100 million contribution to the company’s recent capital raising.
In March of this year, La Caisse said it had raised its 2020 target for low-carbon assets under management from $26 billion to $32 billion. The company described the target as part of its strategy to address climate change and capture opportunities from the transition to a low-carbon economy.
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.