Bank SinoPac (永豐銀行) and four other banks are providing Taya Group (大亞集團) with a NT$3.2 billion (US$106.31 million) syndicated loan to install 76 megawatts of ground-mounted solar power in Tainan, Bank SinoPac said yesterday.
Bank SinoPac is serving as the lead bank, with KGI Bank (凱基銀行), Hua Nan Commercial Bank (華南銀行), Chang Hwa Bank (彰化銀行) and International Bills Finance Corp (國際票券) also contributing to the loan, it said.
The banks did not disclose interest rates for the loan nor how it would be split among the five lenders, saying only that the syndicated loan was 153 percent oversubscribed.
Photo: Kelson Wang, Taipei Times
Interest rates for syndicated loans are usually lower than those for regular corporate lending, one bank manager said.
“We have been focusing on offering green loans since 2012, as it helps the nation acquire more clean energy,” Bank SinoPac president Eric Chuang (莊銘福) told a news conference in Taipei.
The loan marked its latest funding for solar power projects after it last year arranged NT$2 billion in syndicated loans for Formosa Solar Renewable Power Co Ltd (寶島陽光), NT$4 billion for Kingstone Energy Technology Co (國軒科技) and NT$6 billion for Chailease Finance Co Ltd (中租迪和), Chuang said.
The lender has made loans to more than 4,000 solar power farms with total installed capacity of 1 gigawatt as of the end of last month, he said, adding that the amount of outstanding loans totaled NT$27.4 billion.
Taya Electric Wire and Cable Co (大亞電線電纜 ) is to build a photovoltaic power station on a 70m2 plot in Tainan’s Xuejia District (學甲), chairman Ryan Shen (沈尚弘) said.
It is the nation’s first solar power project built on an integrated plot of private land that had different owners, Shen said, adding that the firm spent two-and-a-half years persuading the owners, who had used the land for raising fish, to rent it for solar power.
“Thankfully, there were only a few owners, so it was not too complicated. They agreed, as selling solar power would make more money than selling fish,” Shen said, adding that the company also had to apply to change the land’s zoning.
Taya is to finish the solar farm by the end of this year, which is expected to generate 1.8 billion units of electricity in the next 20 years, he said.
The company would sell the electricity to Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) under the state-owned company’s feed-in tariff (FIT) scheme, with total profit forecast to be at least NT$2.4 billion, Shen said.
“We did consider selling the power to private companies that need green energy, such as Apple Inc’s suppliers,” Shen said.
“However, as the FIT scheme promises a fixed price over the next 20 years, it can help us earn revenue without any price fluctuations, so we prefer selling to Taipower,” Shen said.
Private technology companies prefer onshore wind power, as the energy is much cheaper than ground-mounted solar power, with the prices for the two types at about NT$2 per unit and NT$4 per unit respectively, he said.
With an approval rating of just two percent, Peruvian President Dina Boluarte might be the world’s most unpopular leader, according to pollsters. Protests greeted her rise to power 29 months ago, and have marked her entire term — joined by assorted scandals, investigations, controversies and a surge in gang violence. The 63-year-old is the target of a dozen probes, including for her alleged failure to declare gifts of luxury jewels and watches, a scandal inevitably dubbed “Rolexgate.” She is also under the microscope for a two-week undeclared absence for nose surgery — which she insists was medical, not cosmetic — and is
CAUTIOUS RECOVERY: While the manufacturing sector returned to growth amid the US-China trade truce, firms remain wary as uncertainty clouds the outlook, the CIER said The local manufacturing sector returned to expansion last month, as the official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) rose 2.1 points to 51.0, driven by a temporary easing in US-China trade tensions, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The PMI gauges the health of the manufacturing industry, with readings above 50 indicating expansion and those below 50 signaling contraction. “Firms are not as pessimistic as they were in April, but they remain far from optimistic,” CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said at a news conference. The full impact of US tariff decisions is unlikely to become clear until later this month
GROWING CONCERN: Some senior Trump administration officials opposed the UAE expansion over fears that another TSMC project could jeopardize its US investment Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is evaluating building an advanced production facility in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and has discussed the possibility with officials in US President Donald Trump’s administration, people familiar with the matter said, in a potentially major bet on the Middle East that would only come to fruition with Washington’s approval. The company has had multiple meetings in the past few months with US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and officials from MGX, an influential investment vehicle overseen by the UAE president’s brother, the people said. The conversations are a continuation of talks that
Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯), an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) designer specializing in artificial-intelligence (AI) chips, yesterday said that small-volume production of 3-nanometer (nm) chips for a key customer is on track to start by the end of this year, dismissing speculation about delays in producing advanced chips. As Alchip is transitioning from 7-nanometer and 5-nanometer process technology to 3 nanometers, investors and shareholders have been closely monitoring whether the company is navigating through such transition smoothly. “We are proceeding well in [building] this generation [of chips]. It appears to me that no revision will be required. We have achieved success in designing
RSS