Third offshore wind farm [in Belgium] scheduled for completetion in 2014

"Thanks to the framework created by the government, Belgium is at the top of offshore wind farms. We are the champions. Not only as far as construction of wind farms is concerned, but also as far as knowhow in the field is concerned. We can be proud of that," said Northwind's CEO Frank Coenen after announcing yesterday that financing for the third offshore wind farm on the Lodewijk Bank 30 kilometres from the Ostend coast is complete.

The financial investment plan kept about one hundred agents from the banking, legal and insurance world hard at work for four months. The construction of the 72 Northwind wind turbines will start in March next year, with completion scheduled for mid-2014. Built at a cost of 850 million euros, the 216 MW park will generate enough current for 230 000 households. About 70% of the project will be financed by the banks and 30% by the project partners Parkwind the Belgian retail group Colruyt's wind energy vehicle and the Belgian energy producer Aspiravi owned by 95 municipalities.

(...)

BNP Paribas and energy banker Green Giraffe are the key financial partners.

This is actually the third financing for an offshore wind farm this year (after Gunfleet Sands (in March, with heavy Japanese involvement) and Lincs (in June, after 3 years of often difficult negotiations and with partial construction risk taken by the banks).

And yet all you hear all the time that there is a funding gap and that "project finance is not readily available" - so much so that some external investors are slowing down their plans to invest into the sector because all they hear is the discourse by banks and other advisors that there is no money (last week, I was at another conference where bankers were saying that there was only a few hundred million euros per year for offshore wind now - a week after signing the Lincs deal and a week before the Northwind one signed, each for larger amounts...)

Wind power

End of the semester?  No it's not, not where I teach.  I still have another week and a half of classes, and then tests, grading, gathering all grades for my students, putting them into the comprehensive program, writing out my student report cards, checking and calculating attendance, writing individual messages, and gathering everything together prior to the parents mailing deadline.