Soitec has secured financing from one of the largest investment banks in Africa to build the company’s planned 50-megawatt peak solar power plant in Touwsrivier, Western Cape, South Africa.
In December, Soitec was selected by South Africa’s Department of Energy as one of the preferred bidders under the country’s independent power producer (IPP) programme.
According to South Africa’s Department of Energy, the country’s goal is that 42% of all newly installed capacity in the next 20 years will be based on renewable-energy sources.
Investec has committed to finance the project and raise the equity to construct the plant, which will be equipped with Soitec’s fifth-generation Concentrix concentrator photovoltaic (CPV) systems.
All financial arrangements are expected to be finalized by the end of the second quarter of 2012.
“With financing now in place, we are moving forward to provide South Africa with its first large-scale CPV renewable-energy plant,” said André Jacques Auberton-Hervé, chairman and CEO of Soitec.
“Following our previous construction of a pilot facility at Aquila and the 500-kw CPV plant near Durban that helped to power the United Nation’s recent conference on global climate change, Soitec is helping South Africa to realize its ambitious renewable-energy objectives,” said Auberton-Hervé.
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