wpd Wind Energy News: Financing for wpd’s Butendiek Offshore Wind Farm Secured

Today, wpd group is announcing that the financing of the project has been secured by signing the agreements for both equity and debt project financing. The main components of the wind farm will be produced during the course of 2013, and the offshore installation is scheduled to start in spring 2014.

Butendiek is the third offshore wind project for which wpd has negotiated the supply contracts and it is the second offshore wind farm where wpd takes responsibility for the construction. For the first time, wpd will take over not only the project management during the construction phase but also the technical and commercial management during the operational phase. wpd will also provide part of the equity as a shareholder in the project. “Our experience, our market position and our team’s competence are the reasons for achieving this important milestone of securing financing and for our partners to set their trust in us”, says Achim Berge, managing director of wpd offshore.

Aside from wpd, the group of investors is composed of renowned industrial partners as well as long-term oriented institutional investors, namely Marguerite Fund, Siemens Financial Services, Industriens Pension and PKA.

“With its favorable site conditions including wind resources, water depth and distance to coast, Butendiek is one of the most attractive offshore wind projects in the German North Sea and it will now be implemented with a strong international group of investors under the leadership of one of Germany’s most experienced teams”, says Berge. wpd’s offshore experience is based on activities in six different European offshore markets. A total of eight projects in Germany, Sweden and Finland have been successfully developed until full consent. Furthermore, wpd has as well been successful in the French market with two of – so far – four projects which have been awarded during the course of the first French tender process. With a pipeline of 18 offshore wind projects and a total capacity of 10 gigawatt, wpd is one of the world’s largest offshore wind developers.

The Butendiek project will be built with 80 Siemens turbines of the SWT 3.6-120 class resulting in a total installed capacity of 288 megawatt. The wind farm is situated in the German North Sea, some 32 km to the West of the island of Sylt. The wind turbines will be supplied by Siemens, and with Ballast Nedam for the foundations, Visser & Smit Marine Contracting for the internal wind farm cabling as well as Fabricom/GdF Suez for the transformer substation, experienced offshore players have been contracted for the project who will not only supply the components but who will also be responsible for design, transportation and installation. The total investment volume is approx. € 1.3 bn.

Project debt financing has been arranged by KfW IPEX, UniCredit and Bremer Landesbank, in a consortium with European Investment Bank, KfW Förderbank, Denmark’s Eksport Kredit Fonden and further commercial banks including BayernLB, HeLaBa, HSH Nordbank, ING, Rabo Bank and SEB. wpd will provide part of the equity itself, thus taking a new approach. “Closing the project financing with the consortium of banks as well as our partners’ equity investment are important milestones for the realization of the Butendiek offshore wind farm. We are pleased to provide evidence that the efforts of German politics to provide a reliable framework for the offshore wind industry and the KfW-Programm Offshore-Windenergie lead to the successful implementation of offshore wind farms in Germany. This is an important signal for the German offshore market and also for the successful further development of our company,” comments Dr. Gernot Blanke, wpd’s CEO, on the project status.

Butendiek Key Facts

• 80 wind turbine generators with a total of 288 MW

• situated in the German North Sea, some 32 to the West of the island of Sylt

• shallow water depth (19 – 22 meters) and favorable soil conditions

• cooperation with reknown suppliers: Siemens (Siemens SWT 3.6-120 turbines),

Ballast Nedam (foundations), Visser Smit (internal cabling), Fabricom/GdF Suez (offshore substation)

• grid connection by grid operator TenneT TSO via the SylWin-Cluster

• commissioning: successive commissioning upon installation of the generators starting fall 2014, overall completion in June of 2015

• energy production: some 1,290 GWh/a, equaling supply for some 370,000 households

• total invest: 1.3 billion Euro