French energy group Engie and Swiss asset manager SUSI Partners AG signed financing agreements for Project Tonstad, a 208 megawatt (MW) wind farm in Norway, which will be one of the biggest in the country, the companies said in a joint press release on Monday.
Located in Norway’s southern municipalities of Sirdal and Flekkefjord, the farm's 51 turbines, supplied by Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy, will produce around 0.7 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity per year, and save approximately 180,000 tons of CO2 emissions, the statement said.
The energy produced at the farm will be sold to Hydro Energi, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Norwegian aluminum producer Hydro, under a 25-year offtake agreement.
'Hydro Energi signed a green Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) to offtake all the electricity produced for 25 years, demonstrating the growing appetite of industrial energy users to secure long-term delivery of sustainable and competitively priced electricity,' the statement said.
The PPA will allow Hydro to produce around 50,000 tons of aluminum each year with electricity from renewable sources at its Norwegian plants, it added.
Engie, as the project developer, will manage the construction and provide operational support to the wind farm, retaining a 20 percent stake, according to the statement.
'SUSI Partners AG provided financial structuring support and the SUSI Renewable Energy Fund II will be the majority investor in the wind park with a stake of 80 percent,' it said, adding the project debt financing package for the wind farm would be provided by German Landesbank Baden-Wurttemberg.
Sandra Roche, CEO of ENGIE Nordics, said Tonstad was an important project for Engie 'as a direct application of the strategy to develop large wind projects in partnership with big industrial offtakers and a financial equity partner”.
'It is also a first step for Engie in renewables in the Nordics, where the group intends to further expand its activities, in contribution to the ongoing energy transition,' she added.
Marco van Daele, chief investment officer at SUSI Partners, said Project Tonstad was a large-scale renewable generation project with a 'highly competitive levelized cost of energy,' and a 'prime example' of the company’s investment mandate, which she said was 'dedicated to financing the global energy transition'.
According to the statement, Engie has a portfolio of 4.8 gigawatts (GW) in wind, including 3.4 GW in Europe, and 1.3 GW under construction worldwide.
SUSI Partner's sustainable infrastructure investment portfolio currently comprises 62 projects across four funds in the fields of renewable energy, energy efficiency, and energy storage, it said.
By Hale Turkes
Anadolu Agency
energy@aa.com.tr