Hive Energy secures bank guarantee for overseas expansion

The guarantee will allow Hive to deliver new and existing renewable energy projects, with an immediate focus on Türkiye, Poland, Croatia, and Serbia.

For its renewable energy projects, Hive acquires suitable sites, secures access to grid networks, achieves planning permissions and secures finance to build the infrastructure.

The new facility will allow Hive to finance ongoing projects in Türkiye, where it has developed 11MW of photovoltaic power generation plants, and extend into new markets.

The firm has also begun to develop new facilities to produce green hydrogen and green ammonia, with core projects in South Africa, Spain, and Chile.

In a statement, Roy Naismith, CFO of Hive Energy, said: “This support from UKEF and Santander has allowed an acceleration in our drive to increase global production of renewable energy. We now have additional financial capacity to ramp up activity in Türkiye, Serbia and other territories helping us to deliver clean energy more quickly and more widely in our mission to reduce global carbon emissions.”

UKEF, the UK’s export credit agency, supported Santander with a guarantee from its General Export Facility scheme. This product has helped UK firms – mainly SMEs – to access over £325m in working capital since launching in 2020.

Richard Armstrong, UKEF export finance manager for Hampshire and Isle of Wight, said: “Government-backed export finance can be a valuable tool for firms looking to do more in the renewable energy sector. I take great pleasure in our commitment to backing Hive Energy as it pursues its aim of reducing the energy sector’s carbon impact and secures more overseas contracts.”

In a related development, Hive announced today (March 5, 2024) that it has completed the acquisition of four early-stage solar projects from Polish developer, T&T Proenergy. The projects will be co-developed to Ready to Build status. The companies have an ongoing development agreement for a portfolio of photovoltaic projects with a minimum of 700MW in the region.