NEW ZEALAND BUSINESS NEWS
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Lightyears, a New Zealand-owned company that develops solar power projects, has raised $174 million to build them. Australian investors supplied $100m of the money and Obayashi Corporation, a Tokyo company listed on the Tokyo stock exchange that develops renewable energy in Japan and elsewhere, supplied the other $74m.
The Obayashi money buys it a 90 per cent share of a newly formed company called LYOC1, which will specialise in solar projects. The Australian side comes from InfraDebt, an infrastructure private debt business focused on the shift to cleaner energy. It has more than 80 projects under way and has put AU$1 billion into the sector.
The raise matters because solar development is capital hungry and slow: land must be secured, consent obtained, and panels and grid connections paid for long before any electricity is sold. Having the money committed up front lets a developer work on several sites at once rather than one after another.
Lightyears already has projects at different stages. A 14MW site at Reefton is close to completion. The company is also a partner in a 15MW build near Kuratau in the central North Island, where eight local Māori land trusts are involved in a 23.5 GWh project intended to supply 3,300 homes. That site is due to be finished in mid-2027 and has a 12-year agreement to sell its power to Fonterra.
Ground is also due to be broken near Ashburton on a 6MW site that will connect to the local electricity network.
The funding follows a busy period for solar companies raising money in New Zealand. Lodestone Energy listed on 22 October, the first public offering on the NZ board since My Food Bag five years earlier. It drew 10,000 new retail and institutional investors who committed $75m, money the company will use for its development pipeline and to grow its electricity customer base.
Lodestone has operating sites at Kaitaia, Edgecumbe, Waiotahi and Coromandel, and at Clandeboye in the South Island. Its development list includes the fast-tracked Mackenzie Basin project on Haldon Station, plus projects at Dargaville, Bunnythorpe and Mount Somers.
Behind the fundraising sits a quieter change in how land is used. Solar companies have been acquiring lease rights over farmland around the country without much public attention. NZ Clean Energy has plans for a large solar farm on a 1000ha block in North Canterbury.
Nationally, about 10,000ha has been consented for conversion, is under construction, or is going through fast-track consenting for solar generation. Estimates put a further 10,000-20,000ha of land in line for solar installations.
Landowners are already seeing what that can be worth. Colliers is advertising a 90ha block on Mangamaire Road in Tararua for sale with a 35-year ground lease already in place for a solar farm that generates $396,000 a year.
For a farmer weighing up a lease, that is the shape of the trade: a long fixed term and a known annual payment, in exchange for taking the land out of grazing for decades. For the solar company, the lease is the first step before consenting and construction, which is why the deals tend to be struck well before any panels appear.
Two things follow for businesses outside the energy sector. First, large electricity users now have a route into projects directly. InfraDebt has set up arrangements that let a range of partners take part, including co-investment with Māori investment groups and with big energy users. Fonterra’s 12-year agreement over the Kuratau output is an example of a buyer securing supply before the site is finished.
Second, the spread of solar onto farmland creates a new kind of counterparty for rural service businesses, contractors, and land agents, and a new set of questions for anyone whose neighbour signs a lease.
The capital is also arriving from offshore rather than from New Zealand savers. InfraDebt’s Australian money and Obayashi’s Japanese money now sit behind a New Zealand-owned developer, which means decisions about which projects proceed will be made with overseas partners at the table.
NZ Business News reports on the decisions, deals and numbers shaping New Zealand business — the companies making them, the policy and market conditions they work within, and what it means for the people running businesses here.