Clifford Chance

Clifford Chance advises on first commercial scale offshore wind farm in Asia

Leading international law firm Clifford Chance has advised the sponsors (Macquarie Capital, Ørsted and Swancor Renewable Energy) on the NT$18.7 billion (US$627 million) 16-year project financing of the development, construction, commissioning, testing and operation of Formosa 1 – Taiwan's first commercial scale offshore wind farm.

This landmark transaction represents a defining first step towards Taiwan achieving its objective of delivering 5.5GW of energy from offshore wind farm projects by 2025.

The financing package will be provided through international and local banks as well as EKF (Denmark's export credit agency) and will be used to refinance the first phase of the wind farm (8MW which commenced operations in April 2017) and fund the development of the second phase (120MW - due to be completed in late 2019).

Nicholas Wong, Singapore partner and Co-head of the firm's Worldwide Projects Group said, "We are delighted to have been able to support the sponsors on Formosa 1, a first of its kind project financing in the offshore wind industry in Asia. This was an exciting project for the Clifford Chance team, giving us an opportunity to showcase the breadth and depth of our regional talent and bring to Asia best in class international expertise. We are fortunate to be acting on many first-of-a-kind and innovative projects in the market from offshore wind to utility size grid connected battery storage to gas to power."

Matt Buchanan, Singapore partner and Head of Construction for Asia Pacific added, "Formosa 1 is a key, pathfinding project for the offshore wind sector - both in Taiwan and the broader Asian Pacific region. We are very pleased to have been able to combine the depth of our Asia based projects team with leading expertise drawn from the European offshore wind market to support the sponsor group right through each stage of Formosa 1 – from procurement of the sector specific construction and operations solution through all aspects of the financing package to close".

Nicholas and Matt led a cross-border team (Singapore, Sydney and Perth) comprising counsel Nadia Kalic and Henry Yip and supported by the firm's Head of Renewable Energy Asia Pacific Philip Sealey, senior associates Danielle Delbridge, Warwick Lindsay and James Clark and associates Almiro Clere and Malcolm Ong. Partner Paul Landless and senior associate Miles Binney provided derivatives advice and Lee & Li provided Taiwan law advice to the sponsors.