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 the Peruvian solar developments to be the most profitable projects in the world.
Peru is behind in renewable energy capacity compared to most of its neighbours (it has some legacy hydro projects) and has lacked a coherent renewable energy policy. The country has enjoyed greater economic and political stability over the past few years, leading policy makers to announce significant new initiatives to build renewable energy capacity. They plan to capitalise on the South American boom in solar with heavily subsidised rural electrification projects, powered by renewables – much like Chile’s boom in renewables. Our mission to reduce CO2 emissions by the most commercial means with environmentally effective technologies is well matched to the suitable geographies of Peru & Chile. Over time Peru will match, if not exceed, their Chilean neighbours to become the most profitable and effective renewable location on the planet.
Our next steps are to create a UK registered EIS company that will serve as a hub for private investment and international development bank finance, building a sustainable financial entity operating within Peru’s new subsidised energy framework. For comparison, Peru’s irradiance averages 7.4 hrs peak sun per day and Southern England 2.4; not to mention Scotland! Taking evidence from the comparable Chilean Atacama Desert projects, it’s reasonable to predict the high altitude, high irradiation Peruvian landscape will be a solar goldmine; providing sustainable carbon emission reductions as the country electrifies to meet growing demand.
350’s MD, Nick Dimmock comments:
“As the political, economic and geographical factors have aligned, we’re delighted to be one of the first UK renewable energy developers to begin work in Peru. This opportunity provides us with a broader EIS offering for our UK investors, and will also yield substantial carbon offsets for our carbon abatement company Carbon 350 to offer via the UNFCC Clean Development Mechanism. It’s good for business and good for the planet too – which is what 350 is all about. This will be our first foray into the EIS Fund approach pioneered by Downing, Oxford Capital Partners, Foresight and the like. In this way, investors will own pretty much 100% of the assets, we will deploy the capital within Peru and provide an expected return of approx. 200% over the term of the EIS holding period including the 30% income tax rebate”.
A formal announcement of the partnership with details of our new JV partner will be coming soon.