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We are proud to have assisted solarZero to bring climate friendly solar energy to schools across New Zealand, advising the business on new funding from New Zealand Green Investment Finance (NZGIF).
Launch of the solarZero Schools energy initiative is supported by an $8m facility from NZGIF, with $10m in reserve for future extensions. With the completion of this transaction, solarZero has now partnered with NZGIF for solar installations on both schools and commercial buildings, adding to NZGIF’s providing facilities of up to $40m to for commercial-scale solar installations and a separate facility dedicated to development and installation.
These transactions adopted an innovative structure, with a range of project finance techniques adapted to meet the parties’ specific commercial needs. The facilities are designed to be able to scale up for use on future projects while minimising unnecessary costs.
solarZero’s CFO/COO Matt Ward commented that “NZGIF’s commitment to fund both schools and commercial projects is a landmark moment for solarZero, allowing us to extend our unique solar energy as a service model into these sectors and continue to scale. To combat climate change we need to innovate and challenge the way things are done; this applies just as much to commercial and capital solutions as it does to technology and operating models. For this transaction we searched globally for structures and financing solutions that we could tailor to the New Zealand market. We are extremely grateful to everyone involved in this for their vision and creativity and are proud of what has been achieved this year. We look forward to delivering more innovation in 2022.”
Our team for both schools and commercial transactions was led by finance partner Luke Ford, with special counsel Josh Jones and solicitor Tom van Schaik. Anthony Harper advised solarZero on the commercial side of the transactions.
"We also advised solarZero on a seperate $10m investment with NZGIF in April this year so we were pleased to be able to continue the journey with them." Luke Ford said.
The April work was geared toward the residential market, while the new transactions will provide solar power at lower cost to businesses and schools at a much larger scale, continuing solarZero’s strong growth trajectory for distributed solar.Luke Ford, Partner
