The four projects in total cover a cumulative 110 acres. In addition to displacing 10,500 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year, they will generate enough electricity to power over 6,500 homes annually for 30 years. The main construction contractor was Solarcentury but the panels themselves were supplied by Tata Power Solar, a pioneering company in the solar cell and panel manufacturing segment based in India. Part of the Tata Group has been supplying quality solar modules for the last 25 years.
BNRG has become Tata Power Solar’s largest international client in 2015, by providing nearly 20 MW of panels to the company.
“HSBC provided just under 20 million euros of funding to support BNRG’s latest solar energy expansion” said Mark Frettingham, HSBC Area Director for Corporate Banking in Sussex. “This consisted of four term loans to allow the company to complete each of the four new solar farms which, now finished, have a combined value of 29 million euros and created 140 full time jobs for one year. BNRG are experts in solar energy and as a leading business in their industry it was vital that we provided funding which would enhance and best support the company to help it achieve its ambitions. This next stage of BNRG marks an exciting new chapter for the company and HSBC is pleased to play its part in their expansion, particularly with the positive benefits the projects will have on the environment.”
Ashish Khanna, Tata Power Solar ED & CEO, added that the UK has seen extraordinary growth in 2015 for solar installations and the company sees huge potential for the sector going forward, even in other geographies.
To date, BNRG has developed and constructed solar farms in Greece, Bulgaria and the UK with a combined value of over 200 million euros. The company has completed 14 utility-scale solar projects in the UK since 2011 and expect to develop a further 5 MW community-financed project constructed and energised by June 2016.
While no large scale solar projects have been constructed in Ireland to date, BNRG Director David Maguire believes that policy support for solar in Ireland is only a matter of time and that development will occur in Ireland in 2017 or 2018. Over the last 12 months, ESB Networks have seen a significant number of grid connection applications for solar in anticipation of this policy support. In 2014, BNRG identified Ireland as a core strategic territory which appears to be well positioned in the market.
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