RET Capital to acquire Ontario solar farm with $54 mn loan

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San Francisco based clean energy financing provider Renewable Energy Trust (RET) Capital is borrowing $54 million to help fund its acquisition of  a 14.1-megawatt asset from Canadian Solar in Ontario.

In April, the company had agreed to acquire the CityLights solar farm in Chesterville, Ontario, from Canadian Solar. It is the third such deal between RET Capital and Canadian Solar.

RET Capital had earlier closed a non-recourse term loan, fixed rate notes and letter of credit facility with Norddeutsche Landesbank Girozentrale in Hannover and Babson Capital Management in connection with the acquisition of the 12.6-megawatt DC DiscoveryLight and 14.2 MW DC FotoLight projects.

The statement issued by RET Capital does not provide the terms for the non-recourse debt facility.

Earlier this week, Canadian solar announced closure of a round of project financing at $53.3 million for four solar power plants in England with combined capacity of 40.2 megawatts.

The projects, which had become operational in March, were constructed under the renewables obligation support mechanism of UK.

Canadian Solar said in a statement that Investec Bank helped it close the round of financing on May 7. The bank acted as sole mandated lead arranger on the deal.

For Canadian Solar it was the first return on capital based project financing venture and part of the company’s efforts to consolidate position in the UK market.

The company has stated that the four plants acquired in the UK will go into the establishment of a yieldco in the coming months.

Ajith Kumar S

[email protected]