Financial Close for 640 MW offshore wind project in Taiwan
The 640 MW Yunlin offshore wind farm project, the largest offshore wind transaction financed in Asia Pacific and the first large multi megawatt offshore wind project in Taiwan, reached financial close on May 30th 2019.
The Yunlin project will be built eight kilometers off the Taiwanese west coast and will consist of 80 turbines of the 8MW class provided by Siemens Gamesa. Project completion is scheduled in December 2021.
wpd AG (“wpd”) developed the project for several years and received the tariff award by the Taiwanese Government in April 2018. The Yunlin project is 73% owned by wpd and 27% owned by a Sojitz Corp led consortium. Apart from Sojitz, other members of the Sojitz consortium include: The Chugoku Electric Power Co. Inc., Chudenko Corporation, Shikoku Electric Power Co., Inc. and JXTG Nippon Oil & Energy Corporation.
A financing group comprising a total of nineteen banks and three export credit agencies from Denmark (EKF), Germany (Euler Hermes) and the Netherlands (Atradius) has closed this TW$ 94 bn (USD 2.9 bn) project financing. The bank financing group is made of four Taiwanese banks (Cathay United Bank, CTBC Bank, E.SUN Bank, Taipei Fubon Commercial Bank) and fifteen international banks (BNP Paribas, Commerzbank, Crédit Agricole Corporate and Investment Bank, DBS Bank, Deutsche Bank, ING Bank, KfW-IPEX Bank, Mizuho Bank, MUFG Bank, Natixis, OCBC, Siemens Bank, Société Générale, Standard Chartered Bank, and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation). SMBC acted as Financial Advisor and E-Sun as the local Financial Advisor for the project debt financing. Blanke Meier Evers (supply agreements, equity and debt financing), Linklaters (debt financing) and Lee and Li (debt financing) have acted as legal advisors to wpd.
The Taiwanese market plays a fundamental role in wpd’s global growth strategy. wpd is taking a share in Taiwanese wind projects for more than ten years and is nowadays represented by a local office. wpd has also been awarded for the Guanyin offshore wind project (350 MW) which is planned for realization in 2021.
“We are pleased to announce Financial Close for our Yunlin project”, said wpd CFO Björn Nullmeyer. “Our special thanks go to all those involved in the project, Banks, ECAs and consultants for the tirelessly commitment to make this happen.”
Achim Berge Olsen, COO of wpd, comments: “By achieving this important step we now can concentrate on the realization of the project. We are looking forward to the cooperation with our partners and of course we are aware of the special responsibility being the first large offshore wind project with local supply chain in Taiwan. We are proud of paving the way for future renewable energy projects in Asia.”
