Lightyears Secures NZ$174 Million for 300-MW Solar Pipeline in NZ

• Lightyears secured NZ$174 million: NZ$74 million of staged equity from Obayashi and a NZ$100 million InfraDebt loan facility.
• Obayashi will take 90% of LYOC1, a new holding company for Lightyears solar projects, and invest project by project until March 2028.
• The money backs a pipeline of more than 300 MW of solar and batteries to be built in New Zealand over five years.

New Zealand solar developer Lightyears has secured NZ$174 million ($98 million) from Japan's Obayashi Corp. and Australian lender InfraDebt to build more than 300 MW of solar farms and batteries over the next five years, the company said on Nov. 3.

The funding has two parts. Obayashi plans to invest NZ$74 million, and InfraDebt is providing a NZ$100 million lending facility, Lightyears said in a statement. Obayashi will buy 90% of LYOC1 Ltd., a new Lightyears company that holds solar projects, for NZ$1, according to its Oct. 22 filing in Tokyo. It will then buy into each project company in stages as development milestones are met.

Some of the projects in the deal are already generating, Obayashi said. Neither company has said which sites go into LYOC1 or how much battery capacity the pipeline holds.

The deal in numbers

• NZ$74 million ($42 million) of staged Obayashi investment plus a NZ$100 million ($56 million) InfraDebt facility.
• 90% of LYOC1 goes to Obayashi; Lightyears Energy keeps 10%, according to the filing.
• 57% of the NZ$174 million package is debt (list.solar calculation).
• About NZ$580,000 ($326,000) of funding per MW of pipeline, a rough figure since the pipeline tops 300 MW and includes batteries (list.solar calculation).
• 338 MW across 28 development projects, 236 MW of it on the South Island, according to Lightyears' project page.
• 247 MW of grid-connected solar was installed in New Zealand from 2023 to early 2026, the Electricity Authority said.

Lightyears is finishing the 13.5-MW Reefton solar farm on the West Coast. Near Kuratau it is building the 14.9-MW Te Aho o te Rā farm with eight local Māori land trusts, incorporations and investment entities. That plant should make about 23.5 GWh a year and is due in July 2027. Work has also started on a roughly 6-MW site near Ashburton.

Obayashi already runs geothermal and small hydro plants in New Zealand through its affiliate Eastland Generation. InfraDebt first partnered with Lightyears in 2025, in its first New Zealand transaction.

"This funding lets us add new generation in the regions that need it," Matt Shanks, Lightyears' managing director and co-founder, said in a statement.

Obayashi expects to sign the implementation agreement on Nov. 30. The deal still needs government approvals and other conditions, and the staged payments run through the fiscal year ending March 2028.