
Fund Creation Group refinanced the development costs associated with Oita Yufu Solar Power Plant, the largest solar power plant in its portfolio, the company announced at the end of July 2024.
The 8MW solar power plant, operated under the feed-in-tariff (FIT) scheme is owned by Fund Creation Group’s consolidated subsidiary Yufuin Tsukahara Solar Energy LLC. It started commercial operations on March 25, 2023.
Fund Creation Group did not disclose the financial institutions that provided the new project financing nor the amount.
“Today, the single-biggest cost of a solar project is actually an invisible one: the cost of capital. In this context, refinancing is particularly valuable because it presents an opportunity to reduce that single-biggest cost,” said Richard Matsui, Founder of kWh Analytics, in an article for Renewable Energy World back in 2017.
In the same article, Ahana Renewable’s Director of Asset Management Philip Williams is quoted saying that “savings [from refinancing] could be up to a couple percentage points better than the original terms.”
The publicly traded Fund Creation Group’s 25MW+ solar portfolio consists of over 10 solar power plants ranging, with the exception of the Oita Yufu Solar Power Plant, between 1MW and 2.5MW.