Impax announces financing of Finnish wind projects

Impax Asset Management Group plc has signed a €106 million (US$134 million) project financing arrangement with KfW IPEX-Bank for its Kuolavaara-Keulakkopää (Kuke) wind farm in Finland.

The wind farm is owned by Impax New Energy Investors II (NEFII) Impax’s second private equity fund which is dedicated to investments in renewable energy infrastructure.

Kuke is a 51MW wind farm with excellent wind resource in Lapland, northern Finland. The plant is currently under construction using the new 3MW Nordex N117 wind turbine generators with 120m towers. It is expected to start full production in early 2016.

Impax has also announced the acquisition of an additional Finnish wind farm. It will be constructed using 9 turbines with a total output of approximately 27MW. The project has been acquired at a fully permitted stage and construction is expected to start in 2015.

These two projects bring the total installed capacity of Impax’s Finnish wind portfolio to 105MW. This includes the 27MW Joukhaisselkä wind farm which was project financed earlier this year.

David Trafford-Roberts, Director, Private Equity at Impax, commented:

Finland is an attractive market for the development of onshore wind power generation. It has excellent wind resource with a strong and stable regulatory wind regime, combined with a robust economic and political framework within the EU. We are pleased with the levels of interest shown by both local and international lenders in financing wind farms in this relatively new market. We also look forward to moving our newly acquired project into construction soon.

The Kuke project brings the number of financings closed by Impax since the beginning of the year to six, following earlier closings in France, Germany and Finland. Further financings are expected to be announced in due course.NEFII owns over 400MW of wind and solar power generation facilities in operation, or currently under construction, in France, Germany, Poland, Ireland, Italy and Finland.