2016-02-02 05:07:20.202 GMT By Bloomberg News
(Bloomberg) -- About seven months ago, a unit of Shenzhen Energy Group Co. started looking for ways to find new sources of capital for solar plants that wouldn’t compete for cash with its parent company’s hydro and coal projects. The answer was a new kind of security and a first for China.
A unit of the company called Shenneng Nanjing Energy Holding Co. raised 1 billion yuan ($152 million) last month by selling the nation’s first securities backed by solar farms. It required the parent company to become a guarantor of the securities and executives to persuade banks and insurancecompanies that 「cash flows generated by solar farms in the long run can help repay,」 said the unit’s managing director Li Zhong.
The comments shed light on the inventive ways companies in renewable energy are choosing to raise money at a time when stock markets worldwide and particularly in China are wobbling, shutting off traditional equity investments.
The funding Shenneng Nanjing obtained is linked to solar farms with about 200 megawatts in capacity and equivalent to 55 percent of total investments it’s making in the technology, Li said in an interview in Zhengzhou city in China’s central province of Henan.
China’s push to boost clean energy has made it the world’s biggest market for solar power and home to most of the biggest photovoltaic panel makers. It’s also spurred developers including China Longyuan Power Group Corp. and GCL New Energy Holdings Ltd. to build their own solar farms, requiring access to capital to execute deals.
Applying the asset backed securities, or ABS, to more solar projects would help the industry overcome one of its biggest challenges to tap capital as some of the companies in the industry file for bankruptcy, including Suntech Power Holdings Co. and LDK Solar Co.
Shenzhen Energy’s deal is important because it 「laid out a pathway to a bigger ABS market backed by renewable energy assets,」 said Nick Duan, an analyst for Bloomberg New Energy Finance in Beijing.
China last year issued 593 billion yuan of ABS products, up 79 percent from a year earlier, according to the China Central Depository & Clearing Co.
Shenneng Nanjing will pay interest of about 3.6 percent to 4.5 percent annually for the securities, which have various maturities of as much as five years, underwriter BOC International (China) Ltd. said on its official WeChat social media account. The highest interest rate applied to the solar ABS is below the central bank’s benchmark rate of 4.75 percent for borrowings of as much as five years.
Others may follow if they can maintain the confidence of their creditors, Li said.
「An ABS takes about three to six months to issue, which is still a bit more time consuming than securing financing from banks, and its costs need to be determined case by case,」 said Xue Jiancong, director of public relations at China Merchants New Energy Group Ltd. Even so, the securities can be a tool to refinance existing debt, he said.
One problem is it’s difficult to predict cash flows from solar farms in China, since developers are suffering delays in subsidy payments and the grid is having trouble absorbing electricity generated from some plants, said Duan at BNEF.
Shenneng Nanjing’s products were designed to cope with subsidy delays by keeping repayments lower earlier in the term and then raising them as time passes, Li said.
The company currently focuses on projects in regions of Jiangsu, Anhui, Shandong and Henan and plans to develop new projects in Jiangxi, Hunan and Hubei in the future. These regions are suffering fewer grid constraints.
Shenneng Nanjing is operating about 100 megawatts of wind farms and 400 megawatts of solar-power projects. It plans to raise its renewable energy capacity by about 50 percent this year, he said.
2016-02-02 05:07: 20.202 GMT 彭博新聞大約七個月前，深圳能源集團有限公司的一家子公司開始尋找新的途徑來爭取太陽能電站的建設資本，以避免它與母公司的水電和煤電項目進行現金資本的競爭，最終的答案是一種有價證券，而且成為了中國的首次嘗試。
深能南京能源控股有限公司在上個月將持有的光伏電站資產轉換為在金融市場上可以自由買賣的證券募集了10億人民幣（15200萬美元），它的母公司（深圳能源）成為該項目的擔保人，使得銀行和保險公司相信「太陽能發電產生的長期的現金流可以幫助償還」，該公司的總經理李忠先生說。
這些觀點揭示了可再生能源公司在全球尤其是中國股票市場在不穩定時關閉了傳統的股權投資的背景下籌集資金的創造性途徑。
通過該項目南控公司能獲得的資金相當於一個容量為200兆瓦的光伏電站總投資的55%，李總在河南省鄭州市接受採訪時說到。中國努力推動清潔能源使其成為世界上的最大的太陽能市場和最大的光伏組件製造商市場。這也刺激了研發者包括中國龍源電力公司和協鑫新能源控股有限公司建立自己的太陽能發電站，這就需要進入資本市場來進行交易。
以更多的太陽能項目申請資產支持證券或光伏電站資產證券化將幫助該行業克服其最大的一個挑戰—資本的提供。特別是目前行業內包括尚德電力、賽維太陽能在內的很多公司破產的情況下。
深圳能源的這次交易是非常重要的，因為它「奠定了去往一個更大的可再生能源支持的資產證券化市場的途徑的基礎」，北京彭博新能源金融的分析師尼克段說。
中國去年發布了5930億元的資產證券化產品，79%的產品是在近一年內發行的，這是根據中國中央登記結算有限公司提供的數據。
深能南京公司為證券將支付每年約3.6%到4.5%的利息，有不同的到期日，最高達五年期，主承銷商中銀國際（中國）有限公司在其官方微信的社交媒體帳號上表示，最高的太陽能資產證券利率低於央行五年期借貸的基準利率。如果他們可以對他們的債權人保持信心的話，其他人會跟隨著進行投資，李忠先生說。
「一個資產證券的項目需要大約三到六個月的時間來發行，這比從銀行貸款花費更多的時間，其成本要根據不同的情況而確定，」 薛健聰說，他是在招商新能源公司的公關總監。即使如此，證券可以是再融資現有的債務的一個工具，他表示。
一個問題是中國的太陽能電站的現金流很難預測，因為開發商正在遭受補貼的延誤以及電網棄光的困擾，彭博新能源金融的段先生表示。深能南京公司的產品可用來應對補貼延期的問題，在早期保持較低的還款率並隨著時間的推移逐漸提高。
該公司目前重點發展的項目區域為江蘇、安徽、山東、河南，同時計劃在湖北、湖南和江西開發新的項目。這些地區有良好的電網條件，發電量不會受到電網的約束。
李忠總經理表示：深能南京公司目前運營100兆瓦的風電場以及400兆瓦的太陽能電站，公司計劃今年將可再生能源容量提高50%。