Financial close reached for Westermeerwind wind farm

Westermeerwind B.V. reached financial close for the development of the 144 MW Westermeerwind wind farm in the IJsselmeer, Netherlands.

A group of banks led by ING and Rabobank in the role of structuring banks acted as financiers of the Westermeerwind wind farm in the Noordoostpolder. ASN Bank and Triodos Bank were also involved in the project financing and Danish export credit agency EKF guarantees part of the financing. The total financing comprises approximately €320 million (US$428 million).

A Clifford Chance team in Amsterdam acted in this project as lenders' legal counsel and consisted amongst others of Jaap Koster, Nanette Rutgers, Hein Tonnaer and Liesbeth Buiter. This team recently also acted as advisor to other major Dutch wind projects such as the offshore 600 MW Gemini project and the 196 MW Agrowind project.

Energy company Eneco will be the purchaser of the electricity produced by the wind farm for a period of 15 years. Ventolines, who supervised the development since 2007, is responsible for the project management during the construction and operational phase on behalf of the promoters.

Siemens will build and maintain the largest nearshore wind farm in the Netherlands on the basis of a turnkey contract for a minimum period of fifteen years. The first electricity will be delivered end of 2015.

The Westermeerwind wind farm will be built in the waters of the IJsselmeer along the embankments of the Noordoostpolder. It will consist of 48 wind turbines of 3 MW - in two rows along the Westermeerdijk and the Noordermeerdijk - and a transformer station on land. The total investment is over €400 million (US$535million). The wind farm produces annually more than 500 GWh of renewable electricity, enough for 160.000 households. The Westermeerwind wind farm forms the nearshore part of the Noordoostpolder wind farm.