ReneSola continues PV sell-off spree with 13.9MW exit in Hungary
Oct 15, 2019 08:27 PM ET
Shanghai-headquartered ReneSola has inked the latest of a series of solar divestments in recent weeks, offloading a portfolio of distributed generation in Hungary.
On Monday this week, the small-scale specialist said a 13.9MW portfolio it deployed in the European country has now been sold to Obton, a developer headquartered in Denmark.
According to ReneSola, the package of 24 solar plants now being sold – with average individual array sizes sitting at 0.5MW – was built with support from Hungary’s feed-in tariff (FiT) programme.
The firm laid out its approach in detail in the Q2 2019 financial results it shared in mid-September, where Hungary was singled out as one of its key European markets.
In its update, ReneSola said it is deploying a further 33.6MW series of 0.5MW arrays via a mix of Hungarian policies – 25-year FiTs, mandatory offtake rules – and funding from EU and local banks.
The firm is eyeing the same strategy towards the north in Poland, an up-and-coming solar market where ReneSola claims to be working on a 26MW shovel-ready pipeline.
The new Polish work follows the firm’s FiT contract wins at auctions in 2016, 2017 and 2018, as well as its sale only last week of a 55MW portfolio to Aberdeen Standard Investments.
Over in its home state of China, ReneSola launched a 200MW project divestment series also last week, after finding buyers for an initial 22.3MW rooftop portfolio.
The divestment flurry finds the New York-listed developer having recently returned to profitability, with Q2 2019's US$5.1 million positive net income reversing losses in Q2 2019 and Q4 2018.
The comeback to the black took place as short-term borrowings jumped from Q4 2018 (US$44 million) to Q1 2019 (US$80.6 million) and Q2 2019 (US$82.8 million).
ReneSola claims to have completed 735MW of PV projects worldwide as of Q2 2019, with a pipeline of 1.4GW – 714MW of it late-stage – now being considered for the future.
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