Amplio’s investment will be approximately EUR13m for a total of 6MW of solar plants in the provinces of Foggia and Lecce in the region of Puglia in southern Italy.
This brings Amplio’s total investment in solar in the last 12 months to approximately EUR33m, financed in part with equity and vendor finance in order to accelerate construction of the solar plants. Amplio is expanding its solar team and, in 2010, will be seeking finance for an additional 20MW-30MW, which are in the final permit stages and ready to commence building. Once the plants are fully operational, Amplio intends to refinance its solar portfolio with senior bank debt, the company said.
This additional 6MW will bring Amplio’s operational solar portfolio to a total of 9MW. Amplio has already built and project financed 3MW in Sicily, with Martifer as engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor. Amplio has been working with three other EPC contractors, Ecowareand Sinergia Sistemi of Italy and Solarig of Spain.
In July 2009, Amplio revealed that it had secured EUR40m from institutional investors to build a pipeline of up to around 100MW of PV solar plants over two years. In order to achieve this, Amplio is continuing to expand its solar business into other markets through strategic partnerships with companies active in the installation of solar plants on the roofs of industrial buildings and companies operating in other geographical markets such as France and America, said the company.
Alberto Dalla Rosa, CEO of Amplio Solar, said: “This additional 6MW gives Amplio Solar a good regional diversification as we now have 3MW operating in Sicily and a pipeline of fully integrated solar developments in other regions including Sardinia, the Marche and centre-north areas of Italy. At Amplio, we remain confident of reporting further significant progress in the year ahead.”
Riccardo Segat, CEO and founder of Amplio Group, said: “Despite a difficult credit market, Amplio continues to grow its solar business thanks to the strong support of equity partners and good partnerships with EPC contractors. Amplio Solar is focused on delivering more MW during 2010 under the current tariff regime, creating one of the leading solar energy businesses in Europe.”
