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The €50m funding package for the construction includes an equity investment from Foresight's European Solar Fund, alongside project finance facilities provided by two of the few banks actively lending in the current market.
Some 4MW of the 10MW will be built through an engineer, procure, construct contract with Enerqos, an Italian turnkey supplier of solar farms and BIPV systems. The project, which comprises four plants located in the Foggia and Lecce regions of Puglia, Southern Italy, includes three fixed installations and one dual axis tracker, which allows for increased energy output.

In addition, a further six solar photovoltaic plants will be built, also in Puglia, Southern Italy and with a total capacity of 6MW, through an EPC contract with Ecoware.

Ecoware, part of Kerself Group, is an Italian solar photovoltaic contractor that has already manufactured and installed a number of solar photovoltaic plants in Italy. Of the six sites financed by Foresight's investment, four will be fixed installations while the remaining two will be dual axis tracker plants.

All of the plants will benefit from the 2009 Government backed conto energia feed-in tariff, which is fixed for a 20-year period and is among the highest tariffs in Europe.

Foresight specialises in funding growth companies and MBOs across the environmental infrastructure and technology-led sectors. Foresight focuses primarily on investments in unquoted UK and European companies and offers investors access to a number of proprietary investment products.

Foresight manages £200m across a number of proprietary funds, including Limited Partnerships, Enterprise Investment Schemes and Venture Capital Trusts.

Recent investments made by Foresight have included UK recycling business Closed Loop Recycling, biomass energy company O-Gen UK, biomass manufacturer Land Energy, waste energy developer AWP Environmental, recycling company Lynwood, and biomass fuel supplier Silvigen, a UK-based producer and supplier of biomass fuels for use in the power industry.

Giovanni Terranova, who joined Foresight's Italian team in January, said, "The solar infrastructure market is experiencing rapid growth and continues to attract strong interest from investors and operators. We have been able to partner with market leaders in the construction and operation of solar photovoltaic plants which is an endorsement of Foresight's growing reputation as a major player in the solar infrastructure market in Italy. We believe that having ready access to substantial equity capital through our European Solar Fund and an experienced Italian team with a very strong banking network significantly strengthens our market position in the current financial climate. We expect to announce several more deals in the coming months."