Renewable energy investment management group NTR has secured the first of a number of debt facilities for wind projects under its new EUR 250 million wind fund.
NTR closed a EUR 21.5 million project finance debt facility with Ulster Bank Ireland Ltd. According to NTR, the senior debt facility will be used to finance the construction of the Ora More wind farm, a 15 MW project in County Fermanagh of Northern Ireland. Ora More is expected to be operational by the end of the year.
The project will deploy six GE 2.5 MW turbines and will generate enough electricity to power approximately 13,000 homes. NTR has entered into a power purchase agreement with SSE Airtricity, SSE PLC’s retail energy brand operating in Ireland’s all-island energy market.
SSE Airtricity will have the off-take of the renewable energy generated at Ora More for a period of 15 years. This covers existing single electricity market arrangements, as well as any new market design arrangements under the integrated single electricity market, due to come into operation by the end of 2017.
Carson McDowell acted as legal advisor to NTR, and A&L Goodbody was advisor to Ulster Bank. Everoze acted as technical advisor for Ulster Bank.
Marie Joyce, chief financial officer of NTR, comments, “This is the first project financial close since the launch of our new wind fund, and we are very pleased to have partnered with Ulster Bank to achieve this important milestone. We expect 2016 to be a very active year for us as we finance and build out a number of projects that we have recently acquired.”
