Foresight’s ForVEI Venture Acquires 3 Italian Solar Plants
Foresight Group LLP, a British clean-technology investor, said its ForVEI venture acquired three Italian solar plants with total capacity of 13 megawatts from Spain’s OPDE Group.
The 55 million-euro ($75 million) deal is the largest lease-financing arranged by a single bank for a solar deal in Italy, Federico Giannandrea, a partner at Foresight, said in a phone interview today. Two units of Milan-based Intesa Sanpaolo SpA (ISP) will own the solar parks for 18 years while ForVEI pays a monthly lease and earns guaranteed above-market rates for the power generated, he said.
Italy has been the world’s most active solar market this year, connecting 6.5 gigawatts in solar photovoltaic projects, or three times more than Germany, to reach a total of 10 gigawatts, according to its renewable energy regulator, GSE.
“That’s a pretty startling amount and shows the Italian market in solar PV is very healthy,” Giannandrea said. “The returns for the equity investors have remained in the teens. I see the market going forward as a very stable one.”
Giannandrea said the purchase of the three plants in northwestern Italy’s Piedmont region is based on predicted returns of 12 percent to 15 percent, and “you expect the plants to produce more. Historically in Italy, most of the plants have overperformed.”
GSE says more than 26,000 solar installations totaling about 1.7 gigawatts of capacity have been built in Italy since June, when the country began reducing incentives.
Highest Rates
“This deal hows that there is still appetite for financing quality solar assets in the dangerously overheated Italian market,” said Pietro Radoia, a solar analyst in London for Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
Even with the tariff cuts, Italy has one of the highest feed-in tariffs in Europe, Giannandrea said. Feed-in tariffs, or FITs, are guaranteed above-market prices paid for electricity from renewable sources. The rates will be cut 31 percent by December.
Under ForVEI’s agreement with OPDE, the venture will buy another 20 megawatts of Italian solar farms developed by the Spanish company by the end of October. Including a deal announced in June, that will bring the total of operational farms it owns to about 40 megawatts, according to Giannandrea.
Foresight contributes about 20 percent of ForVEI’s funds, as does the Luxembourg-based Quercus Renewable Energy Fund, according to Giannandrea. He said the remaining 60 percent comes from VEI Capital, itself a venture between Palladio Finanziaria SpA, Assicurazioni Generali SpA (G), Intesa Sanpaolo, Veneto Banca SpA and Banca Popolare di Vicenza Scrl.
To contact the reporters on this story: Alex Morales in London at amorales2@bloomberg.net; Marc Roca in London at mroca6@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Reed Landberg at landberg@bloomberg.net
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