Neoen has secured AU$1.8 billion (US$1.26 billion) in debt financing from 13 lenders for a 1.2GW Australian renewables portfolio that includes the 440MWp Culcairn solar PV plant in New South Wales.
The package covers five operating and under-construction assets across three states. Neoen, which called it its largest financing to date, said the deal would strengthen its balance sheet and support investment in new projects.
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Alongside Culcairn, the portfolio comprises the 215MW/963MWh Culcairn battery storage project, the 150MW/193.5MWh Hornsdale Power Reserve and the 209MW Goyder South Stage 1A wind generation plant in South Australia, and the 179MW Narrogin wind generation plant in Western Australia.
Neoen has not disclosed the length of the loans, their interest rates, or how the debt will be split across the five assets.
“This transaction reflects the quality and diversity of our assets and demonstrates our ability to optimise our financing structure and strengthen our balance sheet,” said Xavier Barbaro, Neoen’s group CEO.
The lenders are ANZ, Bank of America, Bank of China, Export Development Canada, HSBC, ING, KfW IPEX, Mizuho, NAB, UOB, Société Générale, Westpac and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC), the federal government’s green investment bank.
“We value the continued support of our long-term partners, and we welcome the arrival of new lenders,” said Jean-Christophe Cheylus, Neoen’s regional CEO for Australia Pacific. The company did not say which lenders are new to its Australian financings.
Five projects across three states, led by Culcairn
The Culcairn solar PV plant, near the town of Culcairn in the Murray region of New South Wales, is Neoen’s second-largest solar asset globally. It became fully operational in May 2026, less than two years after construction began.
The plant has about 760,000 modules and connects to the National Electricity Market (NEM) through an on-site 330kV line. It cost around AU$636 million to develop, and energy retailer SmartestEnergy Australia has a four-year power purchase agreement (PPA) for half of its output.
Neoen has since started building the 215MW/963MWh battery storage system on the same site, sharing the solar plant’s grid connection. NHOA Energy is the system integrator and commercial operations are targeted for 2028.
The battery storage project holds a Long-Term Energy Service Agreement (LTESA) under the New South Wales Electricity Infrastructure Roadmap. The contract provides revenue top-up payments when wholesale prices fall below a floor.
Elsewhere in the portfolio, Hornsdale Power Reserve, a battery storage project, in South Australia came online in late 2017 and was expanded by 50MW to 150MW in 2020.
Goyder South Stage 1A makes up the first 209MW of the 412MW first stage of Neoen’s Goyder South wind generation plant near Burra.
Meanwhile, Narrogin is the newest project. It won a Capacity Investment Scheme (CIS) contract in May 2026, listed at 168MW, which is the project’s capacity at the point of connection.
Neoen began construction in July 2026 using 23 Envision turbines, and Synergy, Western Australia’s state government-owned retailer, has a PPA for all of its output.
For readers unaware, Neoen is owned by Brookfield. The Canadian asset manager agreed to acquire the French independent power producer in May 2024 in a deal that valued it at €6.1 billion (US$6.81 billion) and became its sole shareholder in April 2025.
To secure competition approval in Australia, Neoen sold its Victorian assets, including the Victorian Big Battery and Bulgana wind generation plant, to HMC Capital in August 2025.
Neoen said it has raised more than AU$5 billion in debt since 2024, covering 4.7GW across 20 Australian assets. That includes an AU$1.1 billion package for 1.5GW of solar, wind and battery storage in February 2024, part of which refinanced existing asset-level debt.
The company reports more than 6GW of capacity contributed in Australia and is targeting 10GW in the country by 2030.
Its largest Australian solar asset is the 460MWp Western Downs Green Power Hub in Queensland, for which Neoen chose Nextracker’s single-axis trackers in 2020, with Sterling and Wilson as engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor.
