Installed solar photovoltaic capacity in the UK nearly doubled in 2014, from 2.8GW to over 5GW. In DECC’s April figures it was reported that overall UK solar PV capacity stood at 5,709MW at the end of March 2015 across over 680 thousand installations. This milestone achievement is testament to the hard work of Britain’s several thousand solar businesses, who are all at the forefront of a real solar transformation as the technology steadily becomes one of the cheapest sources of clean, home-grown power.
RBS has over two decades of experience in financing renewable generation. It has been the largest UK renewables project financier over the period 2011-2014 by both number of transactions and total value (IJGlobal). Solar PV has been a real focus for the bank with customer solutions available across a range of scales. From SME’s and farmers wishing to install Feed In Tariff (FiT) scale installations we also provide solutions for refinancing and expansion of operational FiT and the larger (previously ROC) Contracts for Difference (CfD) assets via Lombard and RBS respectively.
At the larger scale the bank can provide Project Financing for Solar ROC/CfD developments as well as Renewable Funds which incorporate operational solar assets. During 2014 over 500 companies across the UK received financial support from RBS for renewables or energy efficiency projects. Over all of the UK Sustainable Energy lending RBS undertook in 2014 solar was the most supported technology accounting for 31% of all lending.
