The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has lent up to €50 million (US$52 million) to a 237.6MW solar PV plant in Bulgaria.
Austrian bank Raiffeisen Bank International will provide a parallel financing facility of €53 million, making the total finance package €103 million. The project will be supported by first loss risk cover deployed under the EBRD’s InvestEU Framework for Sustainable Transition, and is the first time the EBRD uses the InvestEU guarantee in Bulgaria.
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The financing will be for the construction and operation of the project from Tenevo Solar Technologies EAD, a joint stock company which is equally owned by investment companies Renalfa Group and RGreen Invest, under Renalfa IPP, and Danish renewables developer Eurowind Energy.
Located in southeastern Bulgaria, the project will be the ‘first’ in the country, of over 100MW, to go fully merchant without a support scheme or a power purchase agreement.
A longer-term plan aims to add 250MW of behind-the-meter energy storage output.
“We are delighted to finance this sizeable merchant solar project, which highlights the Bank’s continued support for Bulgaria’s green transition, in today’s context of concerns over regional energy security in light of Russia’s war on Ukraine as well as to support Bulgaria’s ambitious renewables and decarbonisation targets,” said Grzegorz Zielinski, Head of Energy Europe in the EBRD’s Sustainable Infrastructure Group.
Solar PV interest, and renewables in general, in Bulgaria keeps growing with earlier this month the country awarding 3.1GW of renewables and 1.1GW of storage capacity in an EU-back tender. In the past two years, Bulgaria added 1.3GW of solar PV capacity, according to the EBRD.
The EBRD continues to increase its investment in solar PV in Central and Eastern Europe with several projects financed in Romania and Poland, among others, but also in Lithuanian renewables developer Green Genius. Last month, the EBRD invested €100 million in the company and became a minority shareholder.
