RENEWABLE energy and energy storage group Gaelectric has reached financial close on a portfolio of five wind farms in Northern Ireland which are all scheduled to be operational by the end of this year.
Total senior debt of £67milion (or €86m) has been arranged through the London office of German bank Nord/LB to fund the five onshore wind farms through their construction into operation.
The overal Gaelectric portfolio represents a total capital investment of £74m (€96m) and the majority of the senior debt has been advanced on a 18-year term loan basis.
The portfolio consists of Gaelectric wind farms at Monnaboy, Cloonty, Inishative, Corby Knowe and Cregganconroe with a total installed capacity of 51.5 megawatts.
The 12MW facility at Monnaboy in Co Derry is already up and running.
Following financial close of the first two wind farms (Monnaboy and Cloonty) last December, financing of the portfolio was completed through the addition of the final three projects at the end of May.
Gaelectric chief operating officer Barry Gavin said: “We're delighted to have worked once again with Nord/LB in securing competitive project finance for the roll-out of our onshore portfolio of wind assets in Ireland.
"These projects also represent a significant milestone towards our near term goal of achieving around 400MW of generating wind assets on the island of Ireland by 2017.”
As well as Monnaboy, Gaelectric also launched a wind farm at Leabeg (4.6MW) in Co Offaly over recent weeks.
Gaelectric,which is a privately-held renewable energy group specialising in the development and operation of renewable energy assets and energy storage projects, was establishment in 2004 and has developed an extensive portfolio of renewable energy projects in a number of key markets.
It employs close to 90 people at offices in Belfast, Dublin, Manchester and Chicago.
Advisers on the latest transactions have been DLA Piper (legal), McCann Fitzgerald (legal), A&L Goodbody (legal), DNV GL (technical) Wind Prospect (technical), Deloitte (model), KPMG (tax) and Crotty (insurance).
