Canadian Solar reached FC and sell stake in 200 MW solar project

Canadian Solar Inc. recently announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, Recurrent Energy,, has closed on a combined construction and term debt facility, with a syndicate of five banks, for the 200 MW AC Garland solar power project in California. The project, developed by Recurrent Energy, is currently under construction.

With NORD/LB as the Coordinating Lead Arranger, five banks, including CIT, KeyBanc, Rabobank, and Santander will provide project-level construction debt, LC facilities and a back-leveraged term facility, totaling approximately $480 million.

Shawn Qu, Chairman and CEO of Canadian Solar, said:

"With the closing of the Garland solar project, we remain on target to connect over 1.2 GWp of solar power to the grid in the U.S. during 2016. The high caliber of the bank syndicate involved in this transaction speaks to the underlying quality of our projects and our collective team."

Nicolai Dillow, Managing Director and North American Head of Originations, said:

"NORD/LB is pleased to support Recurrent Energy on this important transaction. Garland represents yet another key step in our evolving relationship with Recurrent, one of the industry's leading solar developers. We look forward to partnering with Recurrent and Canadian Solar on future projects." 

Canadian Solar has also announced that the company has sold a 51% stake in the project to Southern Power. Canadian Solar will retain 49% ownership and contribute its share of the investment required to complete the construction of the project, which the Company has financed through a construction and back-leveraged loan facility with a syndicate of five banks.

The Garland project, covering an area of approximately 2,000 acres in Kern County, will primarily utilize Canadian Solar high performance CS6X-P photovoltaic solar modules mounted on single-axis tracking tables, and is expected to enter commercial operation in the fourth quarter of 2016. The project is expected to create more than 300 construction jobs and when completed will generate enough clean solar energy to power approximately 45,000 homes. The electricity and associated renewable energy credits (RECs) generated by the facility will be sold to Southern California Edison (SCE) under long-term power purchase agreements.