Zelestra closes $350m green credit for 203 MW Indiana solar with Meta PPA

Zelestra has closed $350 million in green credit facilities for Reclamation Solar, a 203 MW project in southwest Indiana whose output is contracted to Meta under a long-term power purchase agreement, with CIBC serving as left-lead arranger on debt provided alongside BBVA and Societe Generale, per the company's announcement. The close pushes the Madrid developer past $1 billion in US project financing this year and adds to a US pipeline Zelestra now sizes at 16 GW.

Underneath that total sits a specific piece of ground: Reclamation is sited on land reclaimed from former coal mining operations in southwest Indiana, and the build is slated to install roughly 325,000 bifacial modules alongside soil restoration, native vegetation growth and biodiversity work, with commercial operation due by the end of 2027. US CFO Sybil Milo Cioffi framed the milestone as one shared with the company's lenders and customers.

The credit is sized against a signed corporate offtake rather than a green bond with a use-of-proceeds schedule, and the announcement does not say whether any framework attaches to the debt. Project-level economics—a contracted revenue stream, a site already disturbed by prior industrial use—are carrying more weight than the color of the instrument. Reusing mined land likely trims some of the siting and permitting friction a greenfield project carries; whether that shows up in schedule is what the 2027 commercial operation date will test.

The lender group is small next to some recent comparables. Sonnedix closed a €730m loan from nine banks in August for solar and storage across Italy, Spain, Portugal and France, a wider club than Zelestra's three. On a single-asset deal contracted to a buyer the size of Meta, the risk a lender takes is the offtaker's balance sheet as much as the module count.

BBVA, which we covered in August as a backer of climate-focused funds, appears here as a direct lender to a project. Ines Serrao, who heads US project finance and infrastructure at CIBC, tied the left-lead role to financing large-scale renewables and supporting growing power demand across the country. The $1 billion year and the 16 GW pipeline both depend on projects reaching operation on schedule, and Reclamation's stated deadline is the end of 2027.