By Nina Chestney
LONDON (Reuters) - Mainstream Renewable Power, a wind and solar plant developer, hopes to raise up to 300 million euros (£27 million) by the first quarter of next year to help fund its growth in emerging markets, its chief executive said on Monday.
The Dublin-based renewables company was formed in 2008 and has nearly 10,000 megawatts (MW) of renewable energy in development and some 700 MW in construction and operation.
Earlier this year, Mainstream Renewables said it hoped to raise at least 100 million euros through an equity sale.
"We are talking to a lot of investors. We expect to raise 100 to 300 million euros by either the fourth quarter this year or the first quarter of next year," chief executive Eddie O'Connor said in an interview on the sidelines of the Bloomberg New Energy Finance Future of Energy Summit in London.
Mainstream focuses on emerging markets in Africa, Latin America and the Far East.
In August, it won 27 percent of a government auction to supply Chile with power for two decades from the 2020s. Wind and solar companies, including Mainstream and Italian utility Enel (MI:ENEI), offered record-low bids and won the majority of the tendered power.
Last month, Mainstream Renewable Power and GE Energy Financial Services, a GE Capital business unit, signed an agreement to develop, build and operate large wind farms in Vietnam.
As well as southeast Asia and Latin America, Mainstream also sees opportunities for growth in Egypt, Zambia, Kenya, Ethiopia and Tanzania.
However, the firm no longer develops renewables in Europe.
"We have pulled out of areas where we see no growth. We see 10 years of barren landscape (for renewables) in Europe," O'Connor said.
"Europe is finished for the moment until it builds a supergrid. Unless you link countries up with massive grid extensions and a supergrid, (the market) stops," he added.