Björnberget wind farm, held by Enlight Renewable Energy and Prime Green Energy Infrastructure Fund, reached financial close
Tel Aviv, Israel (ots/PRNewswire)
- The 372 megawatts wind farm in Sweden, has completed the financing of EUR 300 million with a consortium of three lenders: DekaBank, KfW IPEX-Bank and the Swedish Export Credit Corporation (SEK)
The funding of the project, with an estimated cost of EUR 430-440 million, will be provided through non-recourse project financing. The financing agreement includes a long term-facility of EUR 210 million and additional facilities for guarantees, debt service reserve and VAT payments in a total amount of EUR 90-95 million.
A total of 60 of the latest generation Siemens Gamesa wind turbines, which feature the largest rotor diameter currently available in the onshore wind market, will be installed on the site.
The project company signed an agreement with a tier 1 global technology company to sell 50% of the windfarm's electricity production for the first 10 years as part of a power purchase agreement (PPA).
Enlight Renewable Energy (TASE: ENLT) share in the project is 61% - direct holding of 51% and another 10% through its investment in the Prime Green Energy Infrastructure Fund, who holds the remaining 49%.
The Björnberget wind farm is one of the largest onshore wind farms to begin construction in Europe over the last year and is expected to reach commercial operation until the end of 2022.
Gilad Yavetz, CEO and Co-founder of Enlight: "The financial close of our large-scale project in Sweden is another milestone for Enlight in becoming a leading global player in the renewable energy sector. We see great demand for green energy and ESG related investments and we believe that Enlight and our projects, will continue to serve as an excellent investment platform for investments of that kind. We would like to thank KFW, DekaBank and SEK, three of the leading European lenders, for expressing confidence in the project and our partnership with Prime Green Energy Infrastructure Fund."
"The closing of the debt financing for Project Björnberget, which is the seed asset of the Prime Green Energy Infrastructure Fund, represents the final major commercialization milestone of the project. We are pleased to have secured very competitive terms as a result of a European-wide tender process," says Dr. Mathias Bimberg, Head of Infrastructure at Prime Capital AG.
Dirk Mous, Head of Infrastructure & Public Finance, DekaBank:
"We are very excited to support Enlight and Prime Capital in this landmark project, which is our seventh wind farm financing in the Nordics and our fourth wind farm project together with Prime Capital in Scandinavia. DekaBank is highly committed to renewable energy and sustainability and this transaction underpins our ambitions to be one of the leading lenders to clean energy".
"With Björnberget we are financing one of the largest wind farms in Europe," says Markus Scheer, member of the Management Board of KfW IPEX-Bank. "This investment by our clients Enlight Renewable Energy and Prime Green Energy Infrastructure Fund plays a major role in expanding renewable energy generation in Sweden and thus contributes to further decarbonising the regional economy. We are glad to support the investors as well as Siemens Gamesa in this endeavour."
"The Björnberget project is completely in line with our ambition to support the export industry's investments towards more sustainably produced energy. We contribute by using our extensive international experience of major projects, which often require long-term financing together with insight to manage project risks," says Birgitta Lindström Kruk, Head of Export & Project Finance at SEK.
About Enlight Renewable Energy:
Founded in 2008, trades on the Tel-Aviv-125 Index. With 98% of its shares held by the public, Enlight is a leading company in the development, financing, construction, and operations of renewable energy generation projects. The company has operations in Israel and Europe with a diversified portfolio of income-generating projects, projects during construction and pre-construction that total over 2GW and an additional 2.3 GW in initial development stages. Enlight enjoys consistent growth in revenues from long term electricity sales of its yielding assets, and in parallel increasing its diversification to additional markets and clean energy segments.
Contact:
Orli Kasuto Scherf communications orli@schrfcom.com