Ørsted has completed the divestment of 50% of the Hornsea Project One offshore wind farm in the UK to Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP).
Ørsted signed an agreement in September to sell half of the 1.2GW project, under which it will construct the wind farm under a full-scope EPC contract, provide long-term O&M services and provide a route to market for the generated power.
The total sales price includes the acquisition price and the commitment to fund half of the payments under the EPC contract for the complete project, including the transmission assets. It amounts to circa GBP 4.46 billion, due to be paid until 2020.
GIP will partially finance the buy via a multi-tranche financing package equaling more than GBP 3.5 billion, which contains a mixture of investment grade-rated project bonds issued to a consortium of blue-chip institutional debt investors with UK presence, commercial bank loans and mezzanine debt provided by the Danish pension fund PFA, with some tranches guaranteed by Denmark’s Export Credit Agency, EKF.
Located some 120km off the Yorkshire coast, Hornsea Project One will feature 174 Siemens Gamesa 7MW turbines connected to three offshore substations and the world’s first reactive compensation substation (RCS).
The 1.2GW project is scheduled to be fully operational in 2020 when it will become the largest offshore wind farm in the world.
According to information from 1 November , 104 out of 174 turbine monopile foundations and 66 out of 174 inter-array cables have been installed.