LDK Solar majority-owned developer SPI Solar has announced a wave of acquisitions and forthcoming projects in China and Hawaii, having also acquired 26.57MW of projects in Greece in the first week of September.
SPI Solar, with corporate headquarters in California and offices in China and Italy, said yesterday that it will purchase and develop 19MW of distributed generation projects in China via a subsidiary, Xinyu Xinwei New Energy Co.
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The 19MW will be spread across four rooftop sites in Shouguang, Shandong Province, expected to be completed by the end of this year and representing the company’s second acquisition of distributed generation projects in the province. China has an ambitious nationwide target in place to install 8GW of distributed solar, which helped to place it at the top of Ernst & Young’s rankings of the world’s most attractive destinations for renewable energy investment earlier this week.
SPI Solar will also acquire solar PV assets from Hawaiian Power LLC, including equity interests and debt, in a joint venture that was formed by the two companies. SPI said it will therefore take ownership of “approximately 15MW” under development in Hawaii. The deal was worth US$3.95 million, including half a million dollars in cash and 3 million shares of SPI Solar common stock, listed at US$1.15 per share. The deal is expected to be closed by the end of this month.
SPI Solar is currently also developing 1MW of Hawaiian PV in a separate deal, across four 0.25MW plants, scheduled for completion in the last month of this year. Along with another 2.5MW of development rights recently acquired, this will bring SPI Solar’s direct involvement in Hawaii projects up to 17.5MW. SPI says all of this PV will be connected by the end of next year.
SPI’s chairman Xiaofeng Peng described Hawaii as among the most attractive markets for solar in the US. The islands already have a high level of renewable penetration, with around one in ten homeowners estimated to have PV on their rooftops as well as large-scale projects under development. The Hawaii Electric Company recently put out a tender for 60MW to 200MW of energy storage to help integrate newly added renewable energy capacity, which Dean Frankel of analysis firm Lux Research has written about for PV Tech’s sister site PV Tech Storage.
SPI Solar had revealed in the second week of this month that it was acquiring SinSin Renewable Investment Limited, a Malta-headquartered company which owns 26.57MW projects in Greece for EU70 million (US$91.78 million). Under the terms of the deal, SinSin could also appoint SPI Solar to develop up to 360MW of further Greece projects.
While parent company LDK Solar is undergoing restructuring, which has included several of its US subsidiaries filing for bankruptcy, SPI Solar also announced this week that it closed a private placement of common stock worth more than US$20 million, which opened at the end of July 2014. The freed up capital will be used to ramp up SPI Solar’s YES! Solar solution – a package deal for clients that includes LDK Solar modules and a dealer/installer financing package targeted at commercial and residential markets in the US.
