Due diligence for renewable investors

Lenders Engineer, Borkum West II (400MW), Dexia, KfW, HVB Unicredit, Rabobank, HSH Nordbank, Germany (2008)

SgurrEnergy are working with Metoc Plc and acting as the lenders engineer to a consortium of major project finance banks for a 400MW offshore wind farm in Germany. We have already provided a comprehensive due diligence report on the technical and contractual issues involved in the project, including assessments of contractual structure and interface risk, key project agreements, capabilities of the key project participants, energy yield and of the 5MW turbine. We have also reviewed the environmental and permitting aspects of the project.

Havsnas Onshore wind farm (95MW), NordLB, Commerzbank & ING Bank N.V, Sweden (2008 – ongoing)

SgurrEnergy is acting as the Lenders Engineer for the 95MW Havsnas onshore wind project in Sweden which is utilising Vestas V90 (2MW) turbines. Our pre-financial close review included reviewing project agreements and contracts, capital and maintenance costs, construction programmes and turbine technology. We also provided a full independent energy yield forecast.  Following financial close we will continue to act on behalf of the lenders by undertaking a range of construction monitoring activities, including monthly site inspections, signing off monthly valuations and providing drawdown certificates to the lenders as required. Our due diligence work involved a detailed review of the weather risk during construction and icing risk during operation, as well as assessing turbine suitability for the project location.

HgCapital bought a 75 per cent share of the Havsnas wind farm development in northern Sweden from RES Skandinavien, with Commerzbank, ING Bank N.V. and NordLB providing the project finance loan facility for the project over a 17- year period. This 48-turbine wind project will be the first merchant wind farm in Scandinavia and is the largest energy project financing in the Nordic market.

Thorntonbank Offshore wind farm

SgurrEnergy teamed up with Mott MacDonald to perform the energy yield due diligence and carry out a technology assessment on behalf of the consortium of lenders for Thornton Bank offshore wind farm located off 28 km the Belgium coast near Zeebruge.  The work also included a quantification and mitigation of the development risks.

Construction stages of the project which has been operational since June 2008 (photograph courtesy of C-Power).

Airtricity portfolio, SSE, UK, Europe and China, (2007-2008)

SgurrEnergy provided technical due diligence work on the recent Airtricity Holdings Limited acquisition.

The work was undertaken for Scottish and Southern Energy plc (SSE), who announced the £1.1billion deal on 4 January 2008.SSE has acquired all of Airtricity’s assets making it the largest wind farm operator across the British Isles. Interests throughout the UK and Ireland include a 308MW portfolio of operational wind farms as well as 500MW of developments with planning consent. Globally the Dublin-based company has a pipeline of more than 9000MW invarious stages of development, more than two thirds of which is based in China, with extensive plans for Portugal and theNetherlands.

SgurrEnergy’s multi-disciplinary team provided a broad range of technical services beginning with a market analysis of each of the countries associated with the portfolio and a prediction of future energy outputs .An assessment of operational performance of wind farms was carried out in addition to a technical review of operational and development phase projects.