The Greencells office at Masdar, the net-zero city in the Emirates
Greencells, a German-founded, globally active builder of utility-scale solar power plants with offices at Masdar in the United Arab Emirates announced raising EU 15 Million with its Green Bond, secured at 6.5% between 2020 to 2025. Greencells develops, builds, operates and finances utility-scale solar projects worldwide.
The proceeds from the green bond issue are intended to grow the company and power up to 130,000 households with green energy, mainly in Europe. Raising public money through bonds is gaining popularity now that bank rates hover at about nothing. Meaning if you leave money in the bank you will lose money over time from inflation.
Greencells has a model like RE Invest in Canada. To raise bonds from the public. In the olden days, when solar energy started picking up interest around 2005, venture capitalists jumped in and it was hard for non-accredited investors to invest in solar – unless you offered a roof.
Some earned enormous profits from attractive feed-in rates offered by governments, others like entrepreneurs David Anthony from 21Ventures committed suicide when his ventures tanked in 2012. Here is a guest post from Anthony written to Green Prophet in 2009.
Over the years the entrepreneurs making the most money are the ones who make the inverters. SolarEdge, a company from Israel and who I have interviewed many times, always seem to get marketing and business right, and they are doing very well in the last year.
With 15 years of experience and proven success of solar power plant builds and infrastructure, German and Australia are becoming clear winners.
Germany according to PV Magazine almost 50% of German’s energy was created by solar power this year. It is unfathomable that the Middle East hasn’t figured this out. But some of Greencells builds are in the Middle East. Like anything today, solar energy is a global village. It takes a global team to make a build.
According to Greencells they will expand by building a sister company with the raise, and they plan a further raise on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, of up to EU 25 Million.
Andreas Hoffman
“We would like to thank all investors for the trust they have placed in our company and our growth strategy by subscribing,” said Andreas Hoffmann, CEO of Greencells. “And what makes us particularly confident for further private placements in the coming months: The capital market also shares our opinion that our own as well as the sector-specific growth, prospects in the solar market are absolutely intact.
“We have shown that even in Corona times many investors want to join us on the path to sustainable development – that was our goal. We start exactly where it is important for the climate: with projects for renewable energy production based on solar energy, the world’s cheapest energy source.”
A successful partnership with Nordic Solar in Poland will also contribute to further growth of Greencells. After a photovoltaic portfolio of 6 MWp was successfully realized in Nowogard in 2019, a contract for a 38.5 MWp photovoltaic portfolio located at various sites throughout Poland has now been signed.
In the coming years, Greencells will focus primarily on the European market. As a result of the outcome of the presidential election, the USA will focus more strongly on climate protection again under new leadership. This will create further very attractive opportunities in the short term, which the company will seize flexibly. The company has an office in the United States.
The Group now has over 2.1GWp of installed capacity under its belt and employs over 600 employees worldwide. Headquartered in Germany, the Group has international subsidiaries in Asia, the Middle East and the US.
Author: Karin Kloosterman
Karin Kloosterman is an award-winning journalist and publisher that founded Green Prophet to unite a prosperous Middle East. She shows through her work that positive, inspiring dialogue creates action that impacts people, business and planet. She has published in thought-leading newspapers and magazines globally, owns an IoT tech chip patent, and is part of teams that build world-changing products to make agriculture and our planet more sustainable. Reach out directly to [email protected]
