KfW IPEX-Bank will contribute all the debt capital and the necessary ancillary facilities for the Finnish wind farm

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The Nuolivaara wind farm will be powered by 17 Delta4000-series N163/5.7 wind turbines from Nordex. (Credit: NORDEX SE)

Wpd Europe has reached a financial close on the 96.9MW Nuolivaara wind farm in Finland after securing financing for its construction and operation from Germany-based KfW IPEX-Bank.

The bank will contribute all the debt capital and the required ancillary facilities for the onshore wind farm located north of the Arctic Circle in Lapland, nearly 25km northeast of Kemijärvi.

The Nuolivaara wind farm is expected to be completed and enter into operation in early 2023.

It will be powered by 17 Delta4000-series N163/5.7 wind turbines to be manufactured by Nordex as per a contract announced in April 2021.

The project-specific turbines will each have an output of 5.7MW and will be mounted on tubular steel towers. The hub height of the turbines will be 159m.

According to Wpd Europe, the turbines will feature an anti-icing system to enable constant operation and high energy yields annually in spite of the difficult climatic conditions in the region.

Nordex will handle the supply and the maintenance of the turbines of what will be the fourth joint project with Wpd in Finland.

A large part of the electricity produced by the Nuolivaara wind farm will be bought by two Finnish firms under baseload offtake agreements. The rest of the volume will be directly sold on the spot market.

Wpd international project finance head Ralf Ketteler said: “In the important growth market of Finland, we rely not only on a strong pipeline, but also on proven partnerships.

“With financial close of the Nuolivaara wind farm and KfW IPEX-Bank as a reliable partner at our side, we are taking another step towards the global climate targets.”

The Nuolivaara wind farm marks the third transaction of KfW IPEX-Bank for its long-standing core customer Wpd Europe in the Nordics. It is also the 14th wind farm in Scandinavia to have been financed by the German bank in the last 12 years.

KfW IPEX-Bank management board member Markus Scheer said: “We are pleased to be assisting Wpd Europe with this wind farm and, in this way, to be jointly contributing to the energy transition.

“This type of project, which makes use of state-of-the-art turbines by German manufacturer Nordex, demonstrates that it is possible to generate ‘green‘ electricity even under challenging local conditions.

“As a bank, we want to support such technologies to help usher in the transformation towards sustainable and economically and ecologically sound development.”