The bond is a fixed-interest-bearing security aimed at financing the company. The interest rate for the Solar Millennium AG bond has been set at 6.0%.
More than 40% of the corporate bond of Solar Millennium AG issued in March 2011 has already been placed. The bond is a fixed-interest-bearing security aimed at financing the company. The interest rate for the Solar Millennium AG bond has been set at 6.0% for the entire term of five years. The interest is paid out annually. After the end of maturity, the bond will be paid back to the owner. Subscription is possible in increments starting at EUR 1,000. The quantities in which the bond can be purchased are optional at EUR 1,000 each. The overall volume of the bond is EUR 100 million.
Sales revenues from the bond are used for the prefinancing and interim financing of the capital requirement to realize solar-thermal power plants by the Solar Millennium Group, particularly in the American Southwest, as well as for the expansion of the Solar Millennium Group in the US and the intensification of the project development in other markets around the world.
This will enable investors to be involved particularly in the construction of the world’s largest solar power plant project in Blythe, California. The foundation was laid at this location in June 2011, on which up to four solar-thermal power plants with an overall capacity of 1,000 megawatts (MW) are to be built by 2014. With this, the Blythe project will take on the capacity dimension of nuclear power plants. The four plants will supply solar electricity to more than 300,000 US households, thereby avoiding two million tons of CO2 emissions every year. This is the equivalent of 300,000 cars in the US.
The overall investment total for the first two planned solar-thermal power plants at the Blythe site amounts to roughly USD 2.8 billion in total. In April 2011 US Energy Secretary Dr. Steven Chu offered the project company the conditional commitment: a conditional approval for loan guarantees amounting to USD 2.1 billion. The loan guarantees are a prerequisite for debt financing of around 75% of the construction costs for the first two power plants. The conditional commitment includes the contractual terms and conditions that must be met by the applicant to receive the loan guarantees by the US Department of Energy.
The subsidiary Solar Millennium Invest AG in Erlangen, a financial services company licensed by the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin), is responsible for marketing the corporate bond. Dr. Norbert Hagen, CEO of Solar Millennium Invest AG: “Several thousand investors had already subscribed the bond within just a few months. This is evidence of the ongoing interest on the part of ecologically-conscious investors in actively taking part in the energy transition.”
Solar Millennium AG, Erlangen, (ISIN DE0007218406) is an international company in the renewable energy sector, with its main focus on solar-thermal power plants. Together with its subsidiaries and associates, the Company specializes in parabolic trough power plants and has managed to take a globally leading position in this field. Solar Millennium strives to further extend its expertise in the area of solar-thermal power plants with the aim of achieving and securing sustainable technology leadership. As such, the Company covers all important business sectors along the value chain for solar-thermal power plants: from project development and financing to the technology and the turnkey construction and operation of power plants. In Spain, Solar Millennium developed Europe’s first parabolic trough power plants and realized these together with partners. Additional projects are planned around the world with an overall capacity of more than 2,000 megawatts: here the current regional focus is on Spain, the US, the Middle East and North Africa.
Solar-thermal power plants generate electricity by converting solar radiation into heat energy. In a parabolic trough power plant, trough-shaped mirrors concentrate the incidental radiation onto a pipe in the focal line of the collector. Its absorption heats a fluid heat medium in the pipe, generating steam in the power block through a heat exchanger. As in conventional power plants, the steam powers a turbine to generate electricity. By integrating thermal storage, electricity can be supplied on demand, even after sunset.
