Atrato Onsite Energy (ROOF) has entered into a share purchase agreement to acquire a fully operational portfolio of rooftop solar PV assets with a total value of £77.3m. The 34MW portfolio, which is made up of solar PV systems situated on residential rooftops across the UK, benefits from feed-in-tariff (FIT) payments, payable directly to ROOF by the respective utility companies. The seller is a fund managed by Federated Hermes Infrastructure, with an effective date of 31st December 2022. This means that ROOF will benefit from the operational cashflows generated during the year to date. Completion of the transaction is expected to take 6 weeks.
The FIT contracts have a 12-year weighted average unexpired term and benefit from annual, uncapped, RPI uplifts, with minimal exposure to wholesale power prices. The transaction includes £38.7m of existing fixed rate project finance debt. The cost of debt is 2% and the existing project finance within the structure amortises over the remaining 12-year year FIT period. ROOF’s investment adviser, Atrato Partners, believes this portfolio to be a highly accretive addition to ROOF’s portfolio of solar assets, with revenue streams underpinned by government backed income and 100% uncapped RPI inflation linkage. The portfolio is expected to generate 30GWh of clean energy annually, providing 5,800 tonnes CO2 emissions saving per annum, equivalent to powering 10,000 UK homes or planting 230,000 trees.
Comments from Gurpreet Gujral, managing director of Atrato Partners
“We are delighted to have had the opportunity to acquire this significant rooftop portfolio which has strong fundamentals and fits well into our current portfolio. The acquisition will provide immediate, long-term, highly contracted cash flows with 100% uncapped RPI linkage and UK government backing.”