J&V Energy Technology Co (雲豹能源) on Thursday said that it has secured a NT$6.22 billion (US$223.9 million) syndicated loan to fund an aquavoltaic project in Tainan.
Bank SinoPac (永豐銀行) is the lead manager in the deal, with many other financial institutions, including E.Sun Commercial Bank (玉山銀行) and Mega Bills Finance Co (兆豐票券), also taking part, a company statement said.
The renewable energy firm in March announced that it had purchased a site for the aquavoltaic project — a combination fish farm and solar farm — in Tainan’s Beimen District (北門). Based on its planned installed capacity of 123 megawatts (MW), it would generate 180 million kilowatt-hours of electricity per year, or roughy enough to meet the power needs of 50,000 households.
About 10MW of the capacity have already been purchased by Google Inc, the Internet giant’s first renewable energy purchase in Asia.
J&V said it is “working full steam ahead” to complete the project and get it ready to connect to the grid by the end of next year.
“Taiwan has to think about how to balance the development of renewable energy and responsible land use,” J&V chairman Lai Chin-lin (賴勁麟) said. “All along Taiwan’s coast, there are massive fish farms that can be converted into aquavoltaic farms.”
The extra source of income would be a boon to fishers and land owners alike, Lai said.
“Hard work is not enough; these aquavoltaic projects require enormous amounts of capital,” Lai said. “It is only through the support of a consortium of banks that we can make this project a reality.”
J&V plans to enter other renewable energy fields, such as offshore wind, energy storage and desalination plants, Lai said.
As renewable energy projects increase in size over the years, their financial requirements have also ballooned, recent years, Bank SinoPac president Eric Chuang (莊銘福) said.
“In the future, most projects will be financed through a syndicated loan,” Chuang said. “There will also be more ‘reshoring’ Taiwanese manufacturers, which might also require syndicated loans, making them an increasingly important mode of financing.”
Separately, the Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday that it is raising its feed-in-tariff rates for solar projects completed before the end of the year by NT$0.2245 per kilowatt-hour to reflect the increase in commodity prices used in the solar photovoltaic supply chain.
“An adjustment to reflect the costs of developers will be conducive to projects being completed on time,” the ministry said in a statement.
If commodity prices continue to fluctuate, the feed-in tariff rate would be adjusted “on a rolling basis,” it added.
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