Canadian Solar secured a non-recourse project finance facility of up to ¥16 billion ($149 million) from Shinsei Bank. The facility will be used to support its 53.4 MWp Oita Hijimachi solar power project.
The non-recourse facility has an 18.5-year tenor, with debt repayment flexibility in 2019 to enable a potential sale of the solar power project to Canadian Solar Infrastructure Fund.
The Oita Hijimachi solar power project is expected to begin commercial operation in May 2019 and will sell its electricity generation to Kyushu Electric Power Company under a 20-year feed-in-tariff contract at the highest rate of ¥40.0 ($0.37) per kWh.
“Today’s announcement marks our largest non-recourse credit facility raised in Japan. We are delighted to have Shinsei Bank provide us with low cost, flexible and rapidly deployable debt to fund the construction of our largest project this year,” said Dr. Shawn Qu, chairman and CEO of Canadian Solar. “We have secured ¥65 billion of project financing over the past 3 years, a testament to the superior quality of our project development and performance of our Japan assets.”
Founded in 2001, Canadian Solar is one of the world’s largest solar power companies, with a geographically diversified pipeline of utility-scale power projects in various stages of development.
