Nine banks yesterday announced two syndicated loans totaling NT$10 billion (US$341.18 million) for Chenya Energy Co Ltd (辰亞能源) to fund its two photovoltaic power stations, which have a combined capacity of 256 megawatts (MW).
DBS Bank Taiwan (星展台灣), KGI Bank (凱基銀行), Societe Generale’s Taipei branch (法國興業銀行), Bank SinoPac (永豐銀行), SMBC Taiwan, Shin Kong Commercial Bank (新光銀行), First Commercial Bank (第一銀行) and E.Sun Commercial Bank (玉山銀行) offered a syndicated loan for Chenya’s 181MW floating station off Changhua County.
Bank SinoPac, DBS Taiwan, KGI Bank and CTBC Bank (中信銀行) approved a second syndicated loan for the firm’s ground-mounted 75MW station in Tainan.
Photo: Chang Hui-wen, Taipei Times
Chenya said that the first loan was for more than NT$7 billion due to the project’s larger scale.
With the two stations slated to start generating power by the end of this year, the firm would sell the electricity to Taiwan Power Co (台電) and use the income to repay the loans, Chenya chairman Yoshihiro Megata told reporters at a news conference in Taipei.
Chenya became a wholly owned unit of Japan’s Marubeni Co after being acquired in February.
Megata said that the financing shows that banks support and have confidence in Chenya.
Although some developers of renewable energy sources sell power to private companies instead of the government, Chenya is researching the government’s feed-in tariff (FIT) policy to evaluate its options, he said.
Some companies interested in buying solar power have approached Chenya, but prices still need to be negotiated, he said.
Bank SinoPac, the lead bank for both loans, offered NT$1 billion and NT$1.5 billion for Chenya’s two solar farms, its president Eric Chuang (莊銘福) said.
Although it is more difficult to build solar farms at sea, banks still have confidence in the Changhua project, as Chenya has experience in building floating power stations, Chuang said.
Bank SinoPac’s cumulative loans to solar power development have increased to NT$35 billion, the highest among all banks, he said.
It expects to make more “green loans” in the fourth quarter, he added.
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