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ACWA Power, the Saudi-listed developer and operator of power and water plants, secured $2.3 billion in project financing for the 2 gigawatts (GW) Ar Raas 2, 1.125GW Saad 2 and 1.4GW Al Kahfah solar PV Independent Power Plant (IPP) projects.
In a stock exchange statement on Wednesday, the company said that the three projects have successfully met the conditions required to access senior loans that constitute the largest portion of project financing.
Significantly, the $2.3 billion (or 8.6 billion Saudi riyals) debt financing is structured as non-recourse to ACWA Power, according to the statement.
The debt financing is provided by a consortium of local, regional and international banks including Banque Saudi Fransi, Mizuho Bank, Riyad Bank, Saudi National Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, Saudi Awwal Bank and HSBC for a period of 27.75 years, the statement noted.
Guarantees offered for the financing is limited to ACWA Power’s pro-rata share of equity bridge loan, standby equity and reserve account.
The total combined investment cost for these projects amounts to $3.4 billion (SAR12.8 billion).
ACWA Power holds an effective 50.1 percent equity stake in each of the three projects while Badeel, a wholly owned company by the Public Investment Fund(PIF), owns remaining 49.9 percent equity stake in the three project companies.
The three projects form part of PIF’s commitment to develop 70 percent of Saudi Arabia’s renewable energy by 2030 in line with the National Renewable Energy Programme (NREP).
(Writing by Dennis Daniel; Editing by Anoop Menon)
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