Solar developer Lightsource bp has secured a US$140 million tax equity deal with Barclays to finance the construction of the 180MW Prairie Ronde solar PV project in Louisiana, US.
Located in St. Landry Parish, Prairie Ronde is expected online by the end of 2024. It is already contracted under a corporate power purchase agreement (PPA) with fast food giant McDonald’s Corporation and Lightsource bp said it will build, own and operate the project.
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Lightsource said that it has committed to “increasing biodiversity” on the land allocated for the PV project, and will grow a variety of plants underneath and around the modules.
The financing is one of the first deals made by Barclays’ Sustainable Project Finance team, which said that it is aiming to facilitate US$1 trillion of Sustainable and Transition Financing – towards renewable energy and energy transition projects – through 2030.
James Edmonds, Barclays global head of sustainable project finance said: “Mobilising strategic capital is critical for the energy transition and ensures Barclays can make a demonstrable difference in accelerating the scale up of clean energy development projects.”
In July last year, Barclays was one of eight banks which backed Spanish utility Iberdrola’s issuance of €850 million (US$925 million) in greed bonds to support the development of new renewable energy generation capacity.
Analysis by the US environmental organisation Sierra Club in January 2023 found that only around 2% of Barclays’ financing into the energy sector from 2016-2022 went to renewable energy companies and projects compared with a global average of around 10%. The report concluded that investment into renewable energy was moving “too slowly” to meet global net zero targets by 2050.
In December 2023, British fossil fuels major bp took full ownership of Lightsource bp, acquiring the 50.03% majority share that it did not already hold. The transaction represented a base equity value of £254 million (US$323 million) and will see bp use Lightsource’s experience as a renewable energy developer to meet its own demands for low carbon electricity.