EIB finances Walney 2 offshore transmission link acquisition

Sep 28, 2012 - The European Investment Bank (EIB) on Wednesday said it had provided half of the debt financing for the GBP-110-million (USD 178.8m/EUR 138.3m) acquisition of a transmission link to the Walney 2 offshore wind farm in the UK.

Blue Transmission Walney 2 Ltd, a consortium of Macquarie Capital Group Ltd and Barclays Infrastructure Funds Management Ltd, has secured the remaining half of the debt financing from four commercial lenders.

UK's energy regulator Ofgem on Wednesday granted Blue Transmission a licence to own and operate the transmission link, after a tender process for offshore transmission owner (OTFO) licences. The Walney 1 and 2 wind farms with total capacity of 367.2 MW in northeastern England are 50.1%-owned by Danish utility Dong Energy. UK utility SSE Plc (LON:SSE) has a 25.1% stake in the project and a company owned by Dutch pension fund PGGM and Ampere Equity Fund owns the remaining stake.

The EIB said it had so far approved up to GBP 1 billion in financing for offshore transmission projects in the first and second rounds of Ofgem's OFTO licences tender process. The bank is assessing the use of an EIB project bond instrument to attract financing for the transmission links, tendered by Ofgem.

(GBP 1 = USD 1.625/EUR 1.257)

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