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The fund will help SolarZero install more home solar systems.
photo: supply
The state-owned Green Investment Fund has raised $365 million in funding from overseas private investors to finance solar power generation for New Zealand homes.
The company is working with SolarZero, which provides more than 15,000 home solar systems, to help finance the installation of more systems.
Foreign investors First Sentier Investors, Natixis Investment Managers and Societe Generale are among those that have bought stakes in what the fund calls its “solar asset pool”.
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NZGIF chief investment officer Jason Patrick said it was a unique service that had proven attractive to foreign lenders.
“The debt we’re issuing is based on a pool of solar assets installed on more than 10,000 homes across New Zealand, and having a pool like that is new to some investors.
“Frankly, we’ve found that some of the offshore investors, like the ones we’ve been lucky enough to work with… have project finance teams and asset finance teams who are looking for resources in decarbonization finance from a commercial perspective and their own institutional goals, and they’re really excited to work with us.”
Patrick said the country needed to significantly increase renewable energy generation to meet its electrification and decarbonization needs.
To do that, however, solar operators and installers need long-term debt to help finance their systems, and lenders want reliable investments, he said.
“That’s what we’re able to do with our solar program.
“Private capital provides the scale needed to accelerate decarbonization investments.”
Patrick said he hoped domestic investors would take a stake in NZGIF Solar Finance in the future.
“We think new structures like this, where you pool solar assets and issue debt against them, are new to many institutional investors and banks and, to be fair, in other markets as well.
“I think once they see some of these programs have debt issued successfully, they’re more likely to come on board and we’re really pleased, as you know, our solar program has issued debt twice now, and gosh, the next time we issue debt, we’ll definitely give them another chance and we hope to have their support.”
He said the solar fund was the first of its kind in Australia.
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