Greenalia achieves financial close of 50 MW biomass plant in Spain

Greenalia has announced that it has signed off a loan of EUR125 million (US$145.6 million) to finance the construction of a biomass-fired power plant in the town of Curtis-Teixeiro, located in A Coruña, Galicia, north-west Spain, bringing the project to financial close.

The plant will have a capacity of approximately 50 MW and will generate 324 GWh per year from forest waste collected within a radius of 100km around the site, which is 103,000m². It is scheduled to commence operations in 2020.

The loan was structured through a project finance and a mezzanine tranche. Banco Santander acted as agent and coordinator of the financing. The senior tranche was provided by the European Investment Bank (EIB), the Spanish state-owned Instituto de Credito Oficial (ICO) and Banco Santander. The Marguerite fund provided the mezzanine tranche.

The financing has obtained the highest green rating, E1, as a green loan, from Standard & Poor’s ratings agency. It is guaranteed by the Finnish export credit agency, Finnvera.

The EIB's loan amounts to EUR50 million (US$58.2 million). It is provided through the Investment Plan for Europe, known as the “Juncker Plan”, and represents the first project financing under the framework of this plan for a biomass plant.

In this transaction, Greenalia was advised by AtZ Financial Advisors (financial); Marguerite was advised by Pérez – Llorca (legal), Arup (technical), Pöyry (commercial), KPMG (tax); senior lenders were advised by Watson Farley & Williams (legal), G-Advisory (technical), Aon (insurance) and KPMG (model audit).