The €655 million Nobelwind offshore wind farm, located 45km off the Belgian coast at Ostend, has successfully achieved financial close. Mott MacDonald acted as lenders’ technical advisor during the project’s financing and will now monitor construction in an ongoing role.
Nobelwind will be made up of 50 3.3MW Vestas wind turbines, providing a total capacity of 165MW. It will be connected to the Belgian power grid through an export cable and will be capable of providing renewable energy to 186,000 households.
Marios Papalexandrou, Mott MacDonald’s project manager, said: “Our technical, environmental and commercial review under very strict timelines played a key role in the project reaching this milestone. Nobelwind will be Belgium’s fourth large-scale offshore wind farm to become a reality and we are proud to have been involved in the three previous ones – Belwind, Northwind and Thornton Bank – which are now all fully operational.”
The management team of Parkwind, major sponsor of the Nobelwind project, added: “We have been very pleased with the high added value contributed by Mott MacDonald for the Nobelwind offshore wind farm. Once again they demonstrated their strong technical expertise and solid understanding of the project, as well as the needs of the lenders. The around the clock availability of the team, especially in the most critical moments before financial close, was instrumental to the successful financing of the project.”
Construction of the Nobelwind wind farm is due to be completed by the end of 2017.