Masdar, Statoil and Statkraft, the developer of Dudgeon wind farm in the UK have secured £1.3bn ($1.8bn) financing for the 402MW project.
Lead arrangers of the financing include Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, BNP Paribas; Crédit Agricole Corporate & Investment Bank; KfW IPEX-Bank.
Other arrangers include Mizuho Bank; Abbey National Treasury Services (trading as Santander Global Corporate Banking); Siemens Financial Services; Societe Generale Corporate & Investment Banking, London Branch; and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking.
The long-term financing will be used for capital requirements of the project which reached financial close in September 2014.
Statkraft will finance its 30% share in the project, while Statoil will finance 17.5% share.
Dudgeon Offshore Wind chairman Halfdan Brustad said: "Closing such a significant phase of the project’s development so swiftly illustrates the energy industry’s confidence in the long-term potential of offshore wind, and the increasing sophistication of financing models available to the sector.
"It is also a testament to the project’s commercial competitiveness, smooth execution, and the growing investor appetite for utility-scale renewable energy."
The project is the first UK offshore wind project to secure financing under the UK government’s ‘Contract for Difference’ (CfD) scheme, is being developed about 32km of the North Norfolk coast of East England.
RenewableUK deputy chief executive Maf Smith said: "This announcement proves that the UK is the go-to destination for offshore wind investors. Big deals like this support thousands of British jobs in every part of the country. Our world-leading offshore wind industry will double in capacity by 2020, driving down the cost of electricity and securing future energy supplies from British waters."
Norwegian oil and gas company Statoil Abu Dhabi’s renewable energy company Masdar own 35% stake each in the project while Norwegian state-owned electricity company Statkraft owns remaining stake.
First monopile in the project was installed in April and the more than half of the project is now complete. Currently the construction of the 1,000t offshore substation is being built with scheduled commercial operations by the second half of 2017.
It will feature 67 wind turbines and produce 1.7 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity per year, which will be sufficient to meet energy requirement of 410,000 UK homes.
Brustad said: "The project benefits the UK’s offshore wind industry; at least 70 local jobs are created directly in the operations phase, additional jobs during construction and indirectly in the supply chain.
"More than 50% of the construction cost is anticipated to be spent in the UK supply chain."
Image: The Dudgeon wind farm is expected to produce 1.7 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity per year. Photo: courtesy of Dudgeon Offshore Wind Farm.