Category: News

Creating value from global trends and “guanxi”

With our NDNCNSA (Non-Disclosure, Non Circumvent, Non Solicitation Agreement) and Term Sheets detailing the scope of our relationship with a major Infrastructure Fund now signed, Deal Stream 1 is coming online. Deal Stream 1 will consist of 6 projects, with the first now being submitted for acquisition. We’re progressing with development of Deal Stream 2, beginning operations with our Chinese solar manufacturers, codenamed CSC (Chinese solar conglomerate) 1 & 2. Which brings us to consider that facet of Chinese culture known as guanxi (pronounced ga-wan-chee and sometimes written guangchi). There’s no direct translation, but it’s a fundamental part [...]

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David Burns joins Solar 350 as Chairman

Solar 350 is delighted to announce David Burns' appointment as our new Chairman. Having been an early investor and independent director of the company in its initial stages, David is taking on the leadership of the board to oversee a critical phase in our expansion. His appointment is another step forwards for Solar 350’s plans for 2015/16, building a senior management team experienced in both developing and financing multiparty renewable energy projects. David is the right candidate to help us knit together our Chinese solar conglomerates, large infrastructure fund clients, equity/debt providers and local JV partners. His background in [...]

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Peruvian Solar Development Partnership – Update

Following-on from last week’s announcement of our partnership with a major Peruvian engineering firm, we’re pleased to formally announce our new plans with Tecnicas Metalicas, headquartered in Lima. Founded in 1979, Tecnicas Metalicas is a heavy engineering firm with a long standing track record in metal (especially steel) fabrication, with both the delivery capacity and resources to make it a leading player in Peruvian infrastructure... and soon to extend their reach (with us) into Peruvian solar development. With a 52,802 sqm fabrication plant (and a processing capacity of 2,400 tons steel per month) they’re firmly established as a major player [...]

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350 Signs New Peruvian Solar Development Partnership

After a successful trip to Lima earlier this year, we’re excited to announce we’ve partnered with a large Peruvian engineering firm ($100m turnover) to begin operations within Peru’s nascent solar energy industry. Our role is to take the backing of our partner’s enterprise-scale industrial build capacity and establish a local solar development company focused on small-scale solar parks facilitating rural electrification. Currently, there is significant Peruvian government support for these initiatives, high local electricity prices and geographically speaking, Peru receives the highest solar irradiation in the world (a function of global position, altitude and cloud cover). Therefore, we anticipate [...]

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“Is it raining?” and other strange election result predictors…

In a break from our usual focus on carbon reduction and renewable energy investment, this week I’ve hijacked Renewable Money with a prediction about the UK general election tomorrow. You might not know that old hands from the politics circuit often used some very strange (but often accurate) election result predictors, and in a too-close-to-call election, they might actually work... When the polls & data won’t cut it: These days the polls are pretty good (the closer you get to the election) but in a neck and neck tie, the poll margin of error means they’re no help at all in [...]

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Election Special!

Election Special: How to vote for lower carbon emissions?

As Britain is gripped by election fever it seems the issue of climate change and CO2 reduction has taken a back seat. But rising global CO2 emissions will have a significant impact on the nation’s future health and economic prosperity, so although the c-word isn’t high on the campaign agenda it remains a key underlying issue for the next government. More importantly, assuming the objective of a modern environmental policy should be (in part at least) to reduce carbon emissions, it should be pretty easy to work out which party has got the best offering… right? The story so far: As [...]

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Solar 350 News: 2015 shaping up to be a huge year

Hot on the heels of bringing on our new CFO, Justin Passfield, Solar 350 can announce we’ve signed agreements with 3 major independent power producers, all of which are exchange-listed entities and of Chinese origin. Obviously we can’t say too much at this point, but we are pleased to confirm we have signed NDNCNS (that’s non-disclosure, non-circumvent, non-solicitation) agreements with a view to developing, building, financing and refinancing utility-scale solar energy projects in Chile and various prime solar locations round the globe. This news means we’re now able to action our Solar 350 staged development & value creation model: Stage 1 [...]

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The home of the future!

Living the good life: off-grid home tech… and pigs.

Last week we wrote about the emerging home battery scene, and how Nissan and Tesla have been developing interoperability between EVs and domestic home systems. A great way to go off-grid and devised (originally) by enterprising DIY energy geeks with a salvaged Nissan LEAF. But away from the big corporate spotlights on cutting edge tech, did you know some German energy companies are providing battery kits now? This started when the German Government reduced the Feed In Tariff it provides to domestic solar when dispatching electricity to Germany’s grid. And it tells us something about the chaos [...]

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The Speakers at BCEA

Solar 350 at the British Chinese Energy Association

Last week it was great to be a speaker at the British Chinese Energy Association event "Away from the coal face and towards the light - renewables from a practitioner's point of view" in London. In a packed day with great hospitality from the hosts (Smith & Williamson Financial Services in Moorgate) I enjoyed presenting to an audience of energy professionals and renewables tech experts, focusing on our Chilean project progress, experiences in the Chilean energy market and the wider opportunities presented by renewable power projects in South America. The BCEA is a non-profit organisation that connects [...]

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Renewable subsidies destroyed the UK electricity market?

A couple of days ago, The Centre for Policy Studies released a report titled: Central Planning with Market Features: how renewable subsidies destroyed the UK electricity market. (You can read the report here). The UK press jumped onto this story and it's fair to say I agree with the findings of the report. I have known the root cause of the problem with renewable subsidies for a while: How can solar power really work in the UK market? We don’t get much sun anyway (when it’s not cloudy) and you never really know when it’s not going to be cloudy, which [...]

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