Clifford Chance advised electricity supplier Elektrizitätswerk der Stadt Zürich (ewz) and Swiss investor Fontavis AG on the acquisition of a stake in Trianel Windkraftwerk Borkum II GmbH & Co. KG.

Together, ewz and Fontavis AG will hold approximately 25 per cent in the company. With their entry, the shareholder structure for the Trianel wind farm Borkum II is now complete. Other shareholders are EWE from Oldenburg and Trianel with additional municipal utilities. This also means that the second level of the enhancement of the Northern Sea wind farm held by local communities has been realised.

According to the current schedule, the decision on construction phase II of the Trianel wind farm Borkum is to be passed in April 2017. The construction of the offshore wind farm shall commence in spring 2018. The Trianel wind farm Borkum II is to be connected to the grid as municipal offshore project by the end of 2019.

The Trianel wind farm Borkum II consists of 32 wind turbines from manufacturer Senvion with an output of 6.3 MW each. The turbines will be erected on monopiles and connected to the farm's existing transformer platform of the first level of Trianel wind farm Borkum. The wind forecasts for the second level expect an annual electricity output of approx. 800m kWh. The total investment costs for the Trianel wind farm Borkum II amount to approx. EUR 800m.

The Clifford Chance team led by partner Dr. Björn Heinlein (Energy & Infrastructure) included senior associate Dr. Werner Brickwedde (Corporate/M&A), partners Dr. Florian Mahler (Banking & Capital Markets) and Dr. Mathias Elspaß as well as counsel Dr. Martin Weitenberg (both Energy & Infrastructure) – all Düsseldorf, partner Thorsten Sauerhering and senior associate Dr. Dominik Engl (both Tax, Frankfurt), as well as senior associate Dr. Lukas Ernst, associates Zaid Mansour, Dr. Philipp Büsch (all Energy & Infrastructure), Maria Luisa Schneider (Corporate/M&A) and senior associate Dr. Axel Schlieter (Banking & Capital Markets) – all Düsseldorf.