Maungaturoto Solar Farm

Profile

Purpose Capital has partnered with Harbour Infrastructure (previously Solar Bay) and Tupu Tonu (Ngāpuhi Investment Fund), to provide equity funding for the construction of a 21MWp solar farm project in Maungaturoto, Northland. 

The site is expected to generate around 32GWh of electricity per annum, which is enough to power approximately 4,000 Kiwi homes (or 12,800 EVs) each year.  

Harbour Infrastructure, the developer behind the Maungaturoto project, is a New Zealand business, established by the Kiwi founders behind Solar Bay, a leading distributed renewable energy generator in Australia. This project is their first New Zealand based, ground-mounted solar project to achieve financial close and commence construction.

Tupu Tonu, is a crown established investment fund whose mission is to acquire and grow the value of a portfolio of high-performing commercial assets that can be offered to ngā hapū o Ngāpuhi in future Treaty negotiations, and to distribute a portion of the profits back to Ngāpuhi hapū, whānau, and uri.

Impact

In order for New Zealand to achieve our carbon reduction targets, we must decarbonise and electrify our economy, and investment into new renewable generation infrastructure is critical to this.

The outcome Purpose Capital is aiming to achieve with this investment is increasing the amount of renewable energy generation, with the impact of that being contributing to mitigating climate change.

Solar generation is one of the cheapest and cleanest forms of new electricity generation while gas and coal generation are more expensive, more carbon intensive, and present higher health risks.

Utility Scale Solar ranks as the #8 solution to climate change (in terms of total atmospheric CO2e reduction) in Paul Hawken’s book “Drawdown – The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming”.

Transaction Summary

The solar farm at Maungaturoto will supply electricity under a long-term offtake to Ryman Healthcare via Mercury Energy. Chint New Energy is the EPC Contractor for the project, while Aurecon has been engaged as the owner’s engineer, and Westpac is the senior debt provider.