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Clifford Chance advises in respect of nine Windplan Groen wind farms of more than 400 MW collectively

7 January 2022

Clifford Chance advises in respect of nine Windplan Groen wind farms of more than 400 MW collectively

International law firm Clifford Chance has advised the lenders in relation to the financing of six wind farms forming part of Windplan Groen and has also advised three other Windplan Groen wind farms in relation to the due diligence.

More specifically, Clifford Chance advised Rabobank and Nederlandse Waterschapsbank (NWB) in relation to Windpark Hanze, Rabobank and ASN in relation to Windpark Kubbeweg, ASN in relation to Windpark XY Wind, and Rabobank and Landesbank Baden-Württemberg (LBBW) in relation to Windpark Hoge Vaart-Zuid, Windpark Hondtocht and Windpark Oldebroekertocht. In addition, Clifford Chance advised Windpark Flevo Ventum, Windpark Ansjovisstroom and Windpark Vires Venti in relation to the due diligence. The nine Windplan Groen wind farms have a combined capacity of more than 400 MW.

Windplan Groen is part of the Regional Wind Energy Plan of the province of Flevoland in the Netherlands, which plays an important part in achieving the country's climate objective to generate 16% of all the energy sustainably by 2023. Windplan Groen, situated in the eastern part of Flevoland, consists of 90 wind turbine generators and approximately 500 MW of new installed capacity, dispersed over eleven legally and commercially independent wind farms operated by members of the Windkoepel Groen Association. Together, these wind turbine generators are expected to generate approximately 1.9 billion kWh per year, representing the annual electricity use of the entire province of Flevoland.

Eight of these wind farms – including Hanze, XY, Hoge Vaart-Zuid, Hondtocht, Oldebroekertocht, Flevo Ventum and Ansjovisstroom  – will connect to the public grid via a substation that is to be constructed, owned and operated by Liander through a closed distribution system comprising one transformer station and a 33kV cable network connected to the relevant wind farms. The closed distribution system will be constructed and operated by Gesloten Distributiesysteem Groen B.V., a company via which some of the relevant wind farms will be the shareholders of the closed distribution system.

This transaction builds on Clifford Chance's market-leading Project Finance practice and sector expertise in renewable energy. Recent examples include advising sustainable heat supplier Eteck on its EUR 225 million portfolio financing, ING, Rabobank and KfW IPEX on the portfolio financing of rooftop solar panel projects installed by Sunrock, Vattenfall in relation to the sale of a 49.5% stake in the 1.5 GW offshore wind farm Hollandse Kust Zuid, Blue Elephant Energy on the acquisition and financing of 47 MW of PV projects in the Netherlands and previously on the acquisition and financing of two solar parks in the Netherlands of a total of 146 MW, Rabobank, NWB Bank and EKF on the refinancing of the largest onshore wind farm in the Netherlands Windpark Zeewolde, and more.

The Clifford Chance team was led by Hein Tonnaer and Liesbeth Buiter and the core team consisted of Rutger Dekker, Joris Dortmans, Carlijn Tenge, Nanette Rutgers, Mike Niekoop, Jasper Dijkshoorn, Jasper Wesselman and legal project manager Martín Secaira. The wider team consisted of Charlotte Horsten, Arwin Lok and Esmée Oldenkamp (Notary), Mies Rijperman, Genia Baardman, Philip Walsh, Priyanka Paunrana, Wouter Fonteijn, Gunika Phalswal, Jack Foley and Franziska Buchholz (Project finance) and Nolan Groenland, Robin Houtveen and Alec Sanderson (Tax) in Amsterdam and Paget Dare Bryan and Mariana Cruz in London.