Octopus Investments ("Octopus"), part of the Octopus Group and the largest commercial solar investor in Europe, has completed the refinancing of 5 solar projects with 64MW of generation capacity near to Montalto di Castro in the Lazio region of Italy.

The 23m euros financing package has been provided by MPS Capital Services Banca per le Imprese (MPSCS) and represents a new landmark deal for solar in Europe - securing project finance debt against solar projects without government subsidy.

Italy remains a key market for Octopus, as a further 110MW of subsidy free solar projects are currently being built across 12 additional sites in the country. When completed, these additional projects will bring Octopus' Italian solar portfolio to a total of 173MW.

This refinancing is the latest in a series of PV refinancing announcements from Octopus in recent months, including a 17.4MW refinancing in France in May 2017 and the expansion of Europe's largest ever portfolio refinancing (622MW) in November 2017.

Matt Setchell, Head of Energy Investments at Octopus said: "I'm really excited that, together with MPSCS, Octopus has once again broken new ground in the European project finance market. This represents a major step on the path to bringing institutional grade renewable energy projects to European markets without government subsidy.

"We've constructed a portfolio of assets that consistently exceed performance expectations, and have now validated our plans to build large scale grid parity solar in Italy with external project finance. I'd like to thank MPSCS for working with us to create a financing package for solar without subsidy in Italy - I'm confident this deal is just the start of a significant market opportunity for both of us".

Guido Paci, Head of Project Finance at MPS Capital Services said: "First of all, we would like to thank the Octopus team for working with us to open up this new and exciting market. We always seek to create positive and long term partnerships with our clients and we trust there will be further opportunities to work alongside this important international investment group.

MPSCS has always been active in renewables and we will continue to do so, applying the right flexibility to implement new and bankable project finance structures in line with the market's needs. We are very proud to have worked with Octopus to finance a major new trend for solar power in Europe."

Linklaters (Legal), Sinergetica (commercial) and PWC (Tax and accounting) advised Octopus and EOS Consulting (Technical), Watson Farley and Williams (Legal) and Operis (Model Audit) advised the lenders.

Related Links
Octopus Group
All About Solar Energy at SolarDaily.com

Tweet

Thanks for being here; We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain. With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords. Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year. If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceDaily Contributor $5 Billed Once credit card or paypal		SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter $5 Billed Monthly paypal only

Pathway opens to minimize waste in solar energy capture
Sydney, Australia (SPX) Jan 26, 2018
Researchers at the ARC Centre of Excellence in Exciton Science have made an important discovery with significant implications for the future of solar cell material design. The team, led by Professor Timothy Schmidt at UNSW, has been looking at ways to capture the energy of visible light that is currently wasted due to the limitations of silicon, which is only able to access approximately 25% of the solar spectrum. To illustrate, silicon on its own is only able to use of about half the energy of gr ... read more