MPC invests in third regional project
Published:Wednesday | February 12, 2020 | 12:06 AM
MPC Capital will be developing a renewable energy plant in El Salvador for US$7.8 million.
The energy investor based in Germany said it secured the financing for the construction of San Isidro Fotovoltaica, a 6.5 megawatt solar project, through local Salvadorean bank Banco Agrícola.
“We see it as our responsibility to identify and leverage opportunities that benefit both our investors and the environment,” said Martin Vogt, managing director of MPC Renewable Energies GmBH, in a press release issued in Hamburg, Germany. MPC Renewable Energies is a subsidiary of MPC Capital AG.
The San Isidro Solar Park, Vogt added, brings El Salvador “one step closer to [becoming] a low-carbon society”.
The plant is projected to reduce carbon emissions by 2.3 kilotons annually, and by 58.7 kilotons in total, over time, he added. The plant will supply power to the country’s grid under a 20-year power purchase agreement.
Vogt says construction of the El Salvador solar park is scheduled to begin in the second quarter of 2020, and commissioning by the fourth quarter of that year. The engineering works and plant construction have been contracted to Enertiva, a Central American company, which will hand over the San Isidro project to as a turnkey operation.
The project is MPC Capital’s third investment in Central America and the Caribbean, after Tilawind, a 21MW operating wind farm in Costa Rica, and Paradise Park, a 51MW solar park in Westmoreland, Jamaica, which started energy production mid-2019.
The Jamaican investment is held through MPC Capital renewable energy business, MPC Caribbean Clean Energy, which is listed in Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago, and has just finalised a rights issue in January through which it raised about US$10 million of fresh equity. The funds will be invested in energy projects in the Caribbean.
The company wanted to raise some US$22 million with the issue of 22.8 million new shares in its rights issue, which would have sent its capital upwards of US$30 million. Instead, it raised half that amount through the take-up of 10 million new shares by stock market investors.
Vogt hinted that the company received investor interest from outside the region and will consider methods to attract such funding in the future.
“We are also seeing strong interest from investors who have not yet been able to invest due to the local focus of the investment vehicle,” said the MPC executive. “We will also offer these investors a platform to participate in this highly interesting growth market,” he said.