Low Carbon, MIDIS in £106m solar refinancing

Low Carbon, the renewable energy investment firm, has struck a deal with Macquarie Infrastructure Debt Investment Solutions (MIDIS) to refinance a chunk of its UK solar portfolio.

The deal, worth £106 million (€147 million; $162 million), covers 12 operational UK solar parks with a combined generating capacity of 99.2 megawatts (MW). The financing includes a combination of RPI (Retail Price Index)-linked and fixed-rate debt.

The 12 parks were developed and constructed by Low Carbon and have been in operation for at least a year. All operate under the UK’s feed-in tariff and renewables obligation subsidy regimes.

Juan Martin Alfonso, chief financial officer of Low Carbon, said the refinancing “ensures the alignment of long-term institutional funding to our operational assets capital structure, taking scale with flexible portfolio terms, and further capital to finance future projects into account”.

Low Carbon invests in renewable energy developers and projects across the solar, wind, anaerobic digestion and concentrated solar power sectors. Its UK solar portfolio comprises more than 270MW of generating capacity.

MIDIS, Macquarie’s infrastructure debt platform, has been involved in a number of other UK solar deals this year. In February, it lent £21.5 million to Quercus Assets Selection to finance a large solar plant in Wales; the following month, it provided £155 million of funding for the refinancing of a portfolio by UK solar panel operator A Shade Greener.

MIDIS, which invests on behalf of a range of global institutional investors, has more than £1 billion for its UK inflation-linked debt strategy, which includes separately managed accounts and a pooled fund.