TenneT Issues Second EUR 1 Billion Green Bond to Fund Offshore Wind Projects

TenneT Holding B.V. has launched and priced its second EUR 1 billion Green Bond issue to finance the transmission system operator’s offshore wind-related projects. 

The EUR 1bn dual tranche (10 and 20 year) bond issue, each sized at EUR 500 million with coupons of 1.000% and 1.875% respectively, has been issued with the support of five banks, Barclays Bank plc, BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank AG, ABN AMRO Bank N.V. and SMBC Nikko Capital Markets Limited.

Otto Jager, TenneT’s Chief Financial Officer, said: “This second consecutive Green Bond issue demonstrates that the green project portfolio approach works very well. By adding one further offshore German wind transmission project to the programme provides us the possibility to continue the issuance of Green Bonds. This underpins TenneT’s ambition to be the best performing TSO in Northwest Europe in terms of Corporate Social Responsibility.”

Moody’s has rated these green bonds at GB1, the highest rating possible under its newly developed Green Bond Assessment methodology.

The proceeds from the second Green Bond issue will go towards the 800MW DolWin1 and the 916MW DolWin2 HVDC link, commissioned in 2015 and 2016, respectively.

TenneT will also finance the two projects under construction with the second issue, the 900MW DolWin3 and the 900MW BorWin3, scheduled for commissioning in 2017 and 2019, respectively.

Part of the proceeds could also go to future Dutch offshore projects, TenneT said.

The TSO issued the first EUR 1bn Green Bond in May 2015. The proceeds were used to finance DolWin 1, 2 and 3 projects.

TenneT’s investments in offshore wind energy projects across the Netherlands and Germany are expected to total EUR 8 to 10 billion over the next 10 years.

In the period up to 2019, TenneT is realizing over 7,000MW of connection capacity for offshore wind farms in the German sector of the North Sea.

By 2023, the TSO expects to have realized 3,500MW of connection capacity in the Dutch sector of the North Sea.