Wind Capital Group Secures USD 240M For 150MW Missouri Wind Project
New Energy Finance : October 27 2009
Source: Company/organisation statement
Wind Capital Group, the US subsidiary of Irish infrastructure and renewable energy investor NTR, has closed on USD 240m in debt financing for its 150MW Lost Creek wind farm in Jefferson City, Missouri. Nord/LB, Bayern LB, Rabobank, Santander, and Union Bank of California were lead arrangers for the financing. The debt facilities consist of a combination of construction and term loans, NTR said in a written statement.
A representative of Wind Capital Group was not immediately available to provide more detail about the debt facilities, including the tenor of the loans. Lost Creek will utilise 100 GE xle 1.5MW turbines and will sell its output to Associated Electric Cooperative under a 20-year contract. The project will be the first that Wind Capital Group will own and operate following completion of construction, the company said in a statement. Construction began in July and is expected to be completed in late spring 2010. NTR said Wind Capital Group has commissioned over 900MW of projects in the Midwest US to date and has an existing pipeline of over 2.7GW of potential wind capacity in 16 states.
Long-term debt, previously a less common financing structure in US wind development, has become a more common option over the last year as the number of tax equity dealmakers shrunk on account of the recession. Most recently, a slew of new deals have closed since the Treasury Department detailed guidelines on its cash grant programme in early July, which provides reimbursements – funded by the recovery act – for up to 30% of project cost and is aimed at unlocking the private financing activity that slowed due to the economic downturn.
According to NTR, only 20 wind project financing deals have closed since the beginning of this year. Of those, the transaction for Wind Capital Group’s Lost Creek project will be one of the first eligible for a cash grant from the Treasury, the company said. Wind companies that have received a portion of the USD 1bn in cash grants awarded by Treasury to date include Spanish developer Iberdrola, the US subsidiary of German power company Eon, the North American subsidiary of Tokyo-based Eurus Energy Holdings, as well as US developers First Wind, Horizon Wind Energy, and EverPower Renewables.
According to New Energy Finance analysis to be published in a forthcoming note, nearly half of the USD 3.2bn in wind financing deals in the past three-and-a-half months have come in the form of long-term debt. Tax equity, US Department of Energy-guaranteed debt, and institutional debt have made up the remainder of the deals.