Solar and storage developer Elgin Energy has closed a deal with Berenberg that will see the German bank finance the development of 1.36GWp of its PV portfolio.
Once the late-stage project development phase is reached, Berenberg’s Green Energy Junior Debt Fund III will finance around 50 of Elgin’s PV projects across Ireland and the UK.
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The first projects from the portfolio are expected to reach ready-to-build status by Q4 2022. The plants will be developed to energisation by Elgin through its partnerships with third parties.
“This is a step change for the Elgin Energy business in terms of the quantum of our development capital and will accelerate the deployment of a significant portion of our portfolio of utility-scale solar projects,” said Ronan Kilduff, managing director of Elgin Energy.
Elgin currently has a portfolio of solar projects in late-stage development totalling more than 3.7GW across the UK, Australia and Ireland.
The company’s recent expansion has seen it form a joint venture with Foresight Group to develop 200MW of solar in the UK, and it was also successful in Ireland’s first Renewable Electricity Support Scheme (RESS) auction last year.
That auction saw solar exceed previous expectations, with winning solar bidders securing 796MW of capacity, or 34% of the total auction volume.
The UK, meanwhile, had 13.3GW of solar capacity installed at the end of 2020, according to trade association Solar Energy UK, which recently said capacity needs to treble to 40GW by 2030 if the country is to meet its decarbonisation goals.
Beyond that, the UK’s Climate Change Committee has said the country should transition to zero carbon electricity generation by 2035 and have 85GW of installed solar capacity by 2050 to meet its net zero target.
