The FINANCIAL — Already since May 2011 the wind farm EnBW Baltic 1 has been delivering green power from the Baltic Sea.
Since Friday its long-term financing is also in place: a banking syndicate comprised of the European Investment Bank, KfW IPEX-Bank, Landesbank Baden-Württemberg and NIBC Bank N.V. will extend a loan amounting to EUR 138 million to the joint project company EnBW Baltic 1 GmbH & Co. KG from EnBW and 19 municipal utilities. The long-term project financing replaces a prefinancing.
The total investment costs for Germany's first commercial offshore wind farm amount to about EUR 200 million. The EIB, KfW IPEX-Bank, LBBW and NIBC Bank N.V. – for the financing all in the function of mandated lead arrangers – are now providing the debt capital financing via long-term loans. In this regard, the loan already committed by the EIB in March amounting to EUR 80 million will be incorporated into the structured finance and partly guaranteed by the commercial banks.
In addition, KfW IPEX-Bank, LBBW and NIBC Bank N.V. are providing a loan amounting to EUR 58 million. In this transaction, KfW IPEX-Bank functions as documentation agent as well as technical and modelling bank. LBBW will take on the role as facility and security agent. NIBC Bank N.V. acts as insurance bank.
According to Dr Matthias Kollatz-Ahnen, Vice President of the European Investment Bank, the project EnBW Baltic 1 provides a strong signal for the further development of the offshore wind sector in Germany. EnBW 1 is operated by EnBW Erneuerbare Energien GmbH, a subsidiary of the power supply company EnBW Energie Baden-Württemberg AG.
Since August 2011, 19 municipal utilities primarily from Baden-Württemberg are participating with a total of 49.7 per cent in EnBW Baltic 1 through a holding company. The now concluded project financing completes the last important step of the participation model between EnBW and the municipal partners.The offshore wind farm lies 16 km off the coast of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, north of the peninsula Darß/Zingst in the German 12 nautical-mile zone of the German Baltic Sea.
Spread over an area of about seven square kilometres, 21 Siemens wind turbines generate a peak capacity of 48.3 megawatts. The energy produced at sea nets about 185 gigawatt hours annually and is fed into the public power grid. This can meet the demand for the equivalent of 50,000 households.
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