Natixis CIB Closes $364m Financing For Chilean Solar Projects

Natixis Corporate & Investment Banking (Natixis CIB) has closed a $364 million financing for a portfolio of a solar PV utility-scale and PMGD plants in Chile. These solar projects are owned and operated by Solek Holding and the portfolio has a combined capacity of about 284-MWdc.

Natixis CIB acted as sole debt structuring advisor for a $75 million mezzanine facility, sole lead arranger for a $55 million PMGD bridge-loan facility, co-Lead Arranger for a $19 million LC facility, as well as co-global coordinator placement agent and green issuance coordinator for a $178 million private placement.

A $37 million bridge loan was separately provided, said Natixis CIB.

The solar portfolio consists of 190 MWdc solar projects which operate under Chile’s special regime for distributed generation projects (known as PMGD), entitling the projects to sell their energy output at the regulated stabilized price. There is also a 94MWdc utility-scale solar PV facility.

“In aggregate, Natixis has financed or arranged approximately US$1.8 billion to support the development of PMGD renewable power generation projects in Chile. The transaction exemplifies our true “one-stop-shop” approach and our commitment to the PMGD subsector, with a handful of other PMGD transactions currently in our pipeline. We look forward to continuing to support the Sponsor in its growth in the region and to support Chile’s continuous efforts toward energy transition“, said Aitor Alava, Managing Director and Head of Infrastructure & Energy Finance, Latin America at Natixis CIB.

Diego Rausei, CIO, Latin America at Solek, commented, “As a fast-growing renewable energy company, expanding our investor base with world-class, long-term view institutions is a key component of our strategy, as we continue developing our projects in Latin America and Europe”.

The New Chilean Regime

The distributed generation projects or PMGD regime was created in 2005. Its goal is to incentivize more distributed and greener electricity generation. The projects in the portfolio will contribute to Chile’s broader energy transition as the country gradually retires coal plants on its way towards the long-term goal of carbon-neutrality.

Once all the projects in the sponsor’s portfolio enter operations, the facilities will be capable of producing more than 750,000 MW hours of clean electricity annually.

Chile presently has nearly 22 per cent of its electricity demand met by solar and wind farms. The national government has set 2030 as the target to obtain 70 per cent of the country’s energy needs from renewables.