Note 15. - Project debt

The main purpose of the Company is the long-term ownership and management of contracted concessional assets, such as renewable energy, efficient natural gas, electric transmission line and water assets, which are financed through project debt. This note shows the project debt linked to the contracted concessional assets included in Note 6 of these Consolidated Condensed Interim Financial Statements.

Project debt is generally used to finance contracted assets, exclusively using as guarantee the assets and cash flows of the company or group of companies carrying out the activities financed. In most of the cases, the assets and/or contracts are set up as guarantee to ensure the repayment of the related financing.

Compared with corporate debt, project debt has certain key advantages, including a greater leverage and a clearly defined risk profile.

The detail of Project debt of both non-current and current liabilities as of March 31, 2018 and December 31, 2017 is as follows:

	Balance as of March 31,		Balance as of December 31,
	2018		2017
	($ in thousands)
Non-current		5,230,432		5,228,917
Current		303,328		246,291
Total Project debt		5,533,760		5,475,208

The increase in total project debt is primarily due to the interest accrued for the three-month period ended March 31,2018 and due to the higher value of debt denominated in foreign currencies since their exchange rate has risen against the U.S. dollars since December 31, 2017. This increase is partially offset by the partial repayment of Solana debt using the indemnity received from Abengoa in March 2018 for $52.5 million (see Note 11) and by the impact of the application of IFRS 9, ´Financial instruments´ from January 1, 2018 (see Note 2).

The repayment schedule for Project debt in accordance with the financing arrangements, as of March 31, 2018 is as follows and is consistent with the projected cash flows of the related projects:

Remainder of 2018

Payment of interests accrued as of March 31, 2018	Nominal repayment		Between January and March 2019		Between April and December 2019		2020		2021		2022		Subsequent Years		Total

($ in thousands)
72,823		214,802		15,703		234,554		268,770		284,586		318,324		4,124,198		5,533,760