Landmark $380m solar financing

Australian renewable energy developer Edify Energy and German group Wirsol have successfully completed Australia’s largest single solar project financing to build and operate three new large-scale solar farms: the Whitsunday and Hamilton Solar Farms in Queensland, and the Gannawarra Solar Farm in Victoria. When complete in Q1 2018, the Queensland and Victorian markets will benefit from an additional 198 MWp of renewable capacity, including the first large-scale solar farm in Victoria.

Mark Hogan, MD of Wirsol Energy Limited said: “We are thrilled to announce the successful acquisition and refinancing of this portfolio as it marks our first move into the Australian renewable sector. Our success in Australia has been driven by the significant experience accrued in the European market and deploying 1 GW of solar to date. We believe this transaction demonstrates the importance of bringing together industry knowledge and local expertise to successfully develop, construct and finance large-scale renewable projects. This transaction firmly positions Wirsol as one of Australia’s leading renewable investors. We will continue building on this success and are actively seeking to acquire further development opportunities to fulfill our internal ambition of deploying 1GWp solar across Australia by 2020.”

Edify Energy CEO John Cole is confident that investment in large-scale renewable energy will become more commonplace. “Transactions such as this demonstrate that the combination of project development and structuring expertise, and investment confidence is once again present in the Australian renewable sector. Since acquiring the sites from Solar Choice in 2015, we have taken these projects through the whole land, planning, grid connection and financing process, always with a view to maximising the volume of capacity we can deliver. We are looking to replicate this scale mindset across the rest of our development pipeline and hope to hear of other project developers doing the same.”