SunEdison bags USD 160m for Chilean solar park, starts construction

SunEdison Inc (NYSE:SUNE) has started building a 110-MW direct current (DC) solar park in Chile after securing USD 160 million (EUR 145m) in debt financing from commercial lender CorpBanca and Norway’s DNB.

The US renewables major said on Tuesday it will use the long-term, non-recourse debt financing to develop, construct and operate the Quilapilun plant. CorpBanca and DNB served as lead arrangers, underwriters and hedge providers of the project financing.

SunEdison is building the Quilapilun solar park in the Metropolitan Region of Chile. The facility will be producing an estimated 242 GWh of electricity a year, which will be supplied to the Sistema Interconectado Central (SIC) under a 570-GWh contract with the Chilean National Energy Commission signed in late 2014.

The US company’s yieldco unit TerraForm Power Inc (NASDAQ:TERP) has the right to acquire the plant upon completion, scheduled for the first quarter of 2016. SunEdison Services will operate and maintain the facility.

The Chilean government's sustainable energy centre Cifes said last week that the country's renewable energy generation had increased 30.5% year-on-year to 621 GWh last month, equal to 10.32% of the national market. Solar power generation amounted to 84 GWh.

(USD 1.0 = EUR 0.906)

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