Source: ionacapital.co.uk
Iona Capital, the low carbon sustainable fund manager, is entering the UK solar market in a partnership with IGas to develop utility scale solar farms in the UK. Its first solar project with IGas will be situated in southern England and will be 25-40MW in size.
By drawing on its project development and investment experience in other parts of the UK renewable energy sector, in particular anaerobic digestion, energy from waste, biomass and energy efficiency schemes, Iona will leverage the strong landowner relationships that IGas has through its long history of onshore energy operations in the UK.
The Iona/IGas partnership has ambitions to develop several ground-mounted solar projects of up to 50MW capacity. IGas will contribute its planning and infrastructure expertise, whilst Iona will provide non-recourse project finance. During the development phase, costs will be shared and, throughout the project lifecycle, IGas and Iona will each own 50% of the project.
Nick Ross, Director of Iona Capital: “Given our focus on renewable and environmental investments in the UK over many years, the PV solar sector is a natural area for us. We are very pleased to enter into this partnership with IGas, given their extensive experience of energy project development in the UK. In due course, we wish to establish similar development/finance partnerships with other energy companies active in UK solar.”
Stephen Bowler, IGas CEO, said: "We are delighted to sign this agreement with Iona. This is another example of how we can leverage the Group's existing operational expertise as the UK's largest onshore operator and use our existing business platform to play an important role in the UK's transition to net zero. We are keen to develop our relationship with Iona and other partners as we seek to maximise value using existing assets and skillsets within the business.”
