Hornsea One Farm-Down Deal Smashes Financing Records

EKF, Denmark’s Export Credit Agency, has provided a GBP 800 million guarantee for the Hornsea Project One offshore wind farm, making this the largest financing in EKF’s history and the largest wind financing that any public export credit agency has ever provided.

As reported earlier, Ørsted agreed to sell a 50% ownership and construction share in the 1.2GW project to the Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP) for around GBP 4.46 billion to be paid until 2020.

GIP will partially finance the acquisition using a multi-tranche financing package of more than GBP 3.5 billion, with some tranches guaranteed by EKF.

”Offshore wind parks have become so large and the financing so complex that it requires participation from several financial players. EKF participates in the financing by covering a part of the banks’ risk,” said Christian Ølgaard, Deputy CEO of EKF.

With the latest deal on Hornsea One, EKF has provided financing to wind projects all over the world for more than EUR 12 billion (DKK 90 billion) since 2003.

The Hornsea Project One is currently under construction some 120km off the Yorkshire coast in the UK. The wind farm’s 174 7MW Siemens Gamesa wind turbines are expected to be fully operational in 2020.