Sonnedix secures financing for solar activity in Puerto Rico

• Sonnedix has raised funds for its Puerto Rican photovoltaic projects, as part of the goal to deploy green power on the isle after considerable damages caused by Hurricane Maria two years ago.

City National Bank of Florida has lent USD 15mn as nonrecourse finance, with DLA Piper providing legal advice. 

At the time being, the international solar producer operates two power stations in the country totaling to 73 megawatts of capacity. The bigger one entered into operation in 2016 and has withstood the category 5 hurricane that happened the following year. It is Oriana project with a capacity of 57.7 megawatts. Another 50 megawatts of PR-based solar capacity are being currently developed by Sonnedix.

 In thirty years, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico is targeted at providing its electricity needs fully from green energy sources. Half a year ago, Siemens induced the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority to scale-up the solar-plus-storage plans. This scaling-up was aimed at protecting PR’s grid from potential natural disasters and enhancing the electricity supply system. 

PREPA was advised to increase the earlier target of 720-1,200-megawatt generation capacity by 2023 up to 1.8 gigawatts of solar and 920 megawatts of storage capacity. The advisers proposed to divide the photovoltaic capacity into a few 250-megawatts tenders. As for energy storage facilities, they can be deployed as a separate block or combined with power stations.