Canadian Solar has closed a BRL500 million (US$100 million) financing facility to develop a Brazilian solar portfolio claimed to be the country’s largest, while also giving it the option to hold built solar assets for longer.
Canadian Solar has turned to Brazilian banks BTG Pactual and Itaú BBA for the facility, which will be used to fund up to 70% of the module manufacturer’s equity contributions in a subset of the Brazilian portfolio.
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The financing facility will support the creation of a publicly-listed vehicle for operating projects which the company said would give it more flexibility regarding when to monetise projects moving forward.
“With this facility, we can further leverage our equity contribution to build projects in Brazil and monetize them post-COD at attractive valuation, while maintaining the option to retain meaningful long-term ownership,” Shawn Qu, chairman and CEO at Canadian Solar, said.
The ‘Solar Module Super League’ manufacturer said the financing structure was unique to the local market.
Canadian Solar said it had developed and contracted nearly 3GW of solar projects in Brazil, tapping into federal, regional and private power purchase agreement auctions. Around 480MWp of projects are in operation and have been sold to third parties, a further 483MWp is currently under construction, while 2GW of projects are at other development stages.
