Spanish company Dhamma Energy has secured finance for the almost 88MW Athies-Samoussy solar farm in the Hauts-de-France region of northern France.
French bank Caisse d’Epargne CEPAC acted as sole arranger agent, and account bank, working with Bpifrance, as the lender, and Natixis as the sole hedging bank.
Athies-Samoussy will comprise five solar parks that will come online over the next 12 months. Annual electricity production will be 93 gigawatt-hours.
Construction has already started at the site at the former Laon-Athies NATO air base.
Infrastructure company Grupo Ortiz is responsible for the engineering, procurement and construction, as well as operation and maintenance.
The solar park is also financed by the mixed companies SEM Somme Energy and SEM Energies Hauts-de-France, as well as the private group Maison Melan Moutet.
Dhamma Energy co-founder Olivier Crambade said: “We are delighted to have established with Caisse d’Epargne CEPAC, BPI and Natixis a very competitive bank financing for our largest solar park in France.
“This marks a new step in our growing French portfolio that balances the geography of our solar parks in operation, which are currently located in Southern France and Corsica.”
Caisse d’Epargne CEPAC board member and head of structured financing respectively Didier Moaté and Amaury Schoenauer said: “We are pleased to have been able to arrange the financing of this new project for Dhamma Energy, for which we have been financing French projects for several years.
“This financing has been structured to allow Dhamma Energy to best benefit from the favourable liquidity that the European Investment Bank offers the French renewable energy sector and will also allow Dhamma Energy to benefit from a truly optimised financing cost.”