UK-based clean energy developer Ecotricity has inked a £70 million (US$104 million) refinancing deal for its 60-megawatt portfolio of wind solar projects from Aviva Investors that will help the company expand its project development pipeline further.
The operational wind and solar parks are located across 19 sites. The agreement would help Ecotricity accelerate its development pipeline of new renewable energy projects across Britain and also represented an evolution in Ecotricity’s business model, said Ecotricity founder Dale Vince said.
Ecotricity expects the deal to provide enough money to increase its total generation to 100MW within 18 months.
“We are pleased to be working with Aviva Investors, a leading British institutional investor, on this innovative financing deal,” said Vince.“Harnessing our customers bills and turning them into windmills got Ecotricity to where it is today – that ‘bills into mills’ model has worked well for us over the last 20 years. This investment from Aviva is an evolution of that Ecotricity model – freeing up value from our own windmills – in effect we’re turning ‘mills into mills’.”
Ecotricity already has planning consent for 20-MW of wind and solar spread across six sites, which it has already started building.