Independent power producer (IPP) Renalfa IPP has secured funding from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) for its Szihalom 450MW solar-plus-storage project in Hungary.
The EBRD’s investment will amount to €70 million (US$82 million) and is part of a €210 million financing package alongside commercial banks and marks the European financial institution’s first energy project financing in Hungary since 2010, said Anca Ionescu, EBRD’s regional head in Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.
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Currently under construction, the Szihalom solar PV plant will be co-located with a 250MW/1GWh battery energy storage system (BESS) in north-eastern Hungary.
According to EBRD, the financing of the utility-scale solar-plus-storage project represents a first of its kind for a hybrid renewable asset in Central and Eastern Europe. The project in itself is amongst the largest renewable energy development projects in Hungary.
All the electricity generated by the solar PV plant will be directly sold in the Hungarian market without a support scheme or a corporate offtake agreement.
“When operational later this year, this large hybrid asset will allow us to offer green baseload products to Hungarian electricity market and a number of flexibility services to the grid,” said Ivo Prokopiev, CEO of Renalfa IPP.
Solar PV projects have been a significant contributor to reducing the contribution of coal to the Hungarian energy mix since 2019. According to thinktank Ember, solar contributed nearly one-quarter of the Hungarian energy mix in 2024.
Renalfa and RGreen Invest JV partnership in Central and Eastern Europe
Renalfa IPP is a joint venture (JV) between Austrian investment company Renalfa Solarpro Group and French infrastructure fund manager RGreen Invest.
Both companies recently partnered again to form another JV, called Renalfa Power Clusters, which will finance the construction of an €800 million pipeline of utility-scale hybrid assets co-located with BESS in Romania and Poland.
Renalfa IPP owns and develops solar PV, wind and BESS projects across Central and Eastern Europe, with over 765MW of operating solar PV and wind assets and more than 510MW under construction. Its BESS portfolio currently sits at 622MW/2,300MWh of operational and under construction capacity.
