The fund will help SolarZero install more household solar energy systems. Photo: Supplied
The state-owned Green Investment Fund has raised $365m in capital from overseas private investors to fund solar power for New Zealand homes.
It was working with SolarZero, a provider of more than 15,000 household solar energy systems, to finance the installation of more systems.
Offshore investors, First Sentier Investors, Natixis Investment Managers and Societe Generale, have bought in to what the fund is calling a "pool of solar assets".
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NZGIF chief investment officer Jason Patrick said it was a unique offering that had proven to be attractive to foreign lenders.
"What we're issuing debt off of is a pool of installed solar assets on more than 10,000 Kiwi homes and having a pool of assets like that is new for some investors.
"Frankly, we've found that some of the offshore investors like the ones we've been lucky to work with... have project finance teams and asset finance teams that look for things like this from both the commercial lens and and their own institutional objectives about decarbonisation finance and they were really excited to engage with us on this."
Patrick said the country needed to vastly increase the amount of renewable energy generation to meet its electrification and decarbonisation needs.
To do so, however, solar operators and installers needed long-term debt to help finance their systems and lenders need reliable investments, he said.
"So that's what we were able to do with the solar program.
"Private capital provides the scale that's needed to accelerate investment into decarbonisation."
Patrick said he hopes domestic investors will buy into NZGIF Solar Finance in the future.
"Our sense is that new structures like this, you know a pool of solar assets and issuing debt off of it, is simply new for a lot of institutional investors and banks, in other markets as well, to be fair.
"I think once they see a few successful issuances of debt off of a program like this, then they're more likely to come in and we're really thrilled as you know to have had two issuances now from our solar program and gosh, the next time we go out with another issuance, we'll be sure to give them another look and we're hopeful to get them on board."
The solar energy fund was the first of its kind in Australasia, he said.
