Acciona secures loan for 480 MW of solar in Australia

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From pv magazine Australia

Spanish developer Acciona Energía has closed a AUD 453 million syndicated green loan for the construction and operation of its 480 MW Aldoga Solar Farm, located 560 km north of Brisbane, Australia.

The green syndicated loan facility is fully backed by Spanish export credit agency Company of Export Credit Insurance (CESCE), and is granted by a consortium of international banks including French BNP Paribas, Dutch ING, USA J.P. Morgan, and Spanish Banco Santander, which also acted as the CESCE agent, with ING serving as the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) coordinator.

The financing also supports the development of regenerative agriculture programs for farmers in the area of the solar farm, with specific indicators to measure their impact and progress.

Acciona is responsible for the development, engineering, construction, management, operation and maintenance of the Aldoga Solar Farm, which will feature 820,000 solar modules. Total investment in the project is estimated at AUD 670 million.

Project construction began in late 2023, with operation expected to start by mid-2026. Once completed, the plant will generate enough clean electricity to supply nearly 185,000 homes and avoid the emission of around 934,000 tons of CO2 each year.

The operation and maintenance phase of the solar farm will last 30 years, and the door-to-door term of the loan covered by CESCE will be 15.5 years.

Aldoga Solar Farm has a 15-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with Standwell Corp., which plans to use all the energy produced at Aldoga to supply its green hydrogen project, the Central Queensland Hydrogen (CQ-H2), but the project stalled in February 2025 when the Queensland government unexpectedly withdrew support of AUD 12.5 billion project.

Stanwell issued a statement on behalf of the CQ-H2 consortium of Japan’s Iwatani and Marubeni corporations, and Singapore’s Keppel Infrastructure, saying it was the reviewing the consequence’s of the state’s announcement, but the project is still expected to proceed.

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