September 16 (Renewables Now) – US independent renewable energy provider Terra-Gen LLC said today it has closed a USD-959-million (EUR 963.4m) financing for the second phase of its Edwards Sanborn Solar Storage facility in California.
The second-phase project has a solar power generating capacity of 410 MW plus 1,786 MWh of battery storage. It will add this to the 345 MW of solar photovoltaic (PV) and 1,505 MWh of storage capacity deployed as part of the first phase, now fully operational.
The solar-plus-storage complex is located in Kern County on land leased from Edwards Air Force Base and on adjacent private land. The solar portion of the second phase is seen to become operational by the end of the year, while the batteries should be fully operational by the third quarter of 2023.
The secured financing consists of a USD-460-million construction and term loan facility, a USD-403-million tax equity bridge facility and a USD-96-million construction and revolving letter of credit facility. The tax equity commitment comes from US Bank, while BNP Paribas, CoBank, ING and Nomura Securities lead the construction and term financing.
“Consistent with the first phase of the Edwards Sanborn project, the second phase deploys an innovate offtake structure that has been well received in the financing markets and allows us to raise the capital necessary to progress the construction of this transformative project,” commented Jim Pagano, Terra-Gen’s CEO.
Mortenson is providing full engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) services for Phase Two, while First Solar is supplying PV panels and LG Chem, Samsung and BYD are delivering the batteries.
Terra-Gen noted that in the future phases of this huge project, which it is currently advancing, it expects to deploy more than 2,000 MW of incremental solar and energy storage. Financing for these phases should be obtained from next year.
(USD 1 = EUR 1.005)
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