International law firm Watson Farley & Williams (“WFW”) has advised Tellenes Vindpark AS (as the “Project Company”) on the construction financing for the 160MW Tellenes wind farm in Norway, which will be the largest operational wind farm in that country once complete.  The Project Company was acquired by US investment firm BlackRock from previous developers Zephyr and Norsk Vind.

The project finance debt package was arranged by Rabobank and DekaBank in a transaction closing on Wednesday 29 June. Danish export credit agency EKF is guaranteeing a portion of the commercial debt.

One of the key features of the project is that the offtaker for all of the energy produced at the wind farm will be internet giant Google, who will be using the clean energy to power their data centre as part of their global green mandate under a 12-year power purchase agreement (the “PPA”).

A total of 50 Siemens 3.2MW turbines will be installed at the site, located in the western Norwegian county of Rogaland, and construction is scheduled to be completed in August 2017.

WFW advised on the project and finance structuring, the suite of finance documents and the PPA.

The WFW project team was led by Energy & Infrastructure partner Henry Stewart, supported by associate Jennifer Etherington, with senior associate Emmanuel Ninos advising on project development aspects including the PPA.

Henry commented: “We are delighted to have advised the Project Company on what is a significant transaction in the Norwegian onshore wind sector, particularly given the Google offtake arrangements”.