Blauwwind

On 12 December 2016 the Blauwwind Consortium was awarded by the Dutch government the right to develop, construct and operate the Borssele III and IV offshore wind farms under a 30-year lease and assumed 25-year operational life after construction. The wind farms will be located 22 kilometres off the coast of the province of Zeeland in The Netherlands. TSO TenneT will build the grid connections and construct the offshore substation in the wind farm zone. The wind farms will use V164 9.5MW turbines made by MHI Vestas. The consortium partners are Partners Group (45%), Shell (20%), DGE (15%), Eneco Group (10%) and Van Oord (10%). Shell and Eneco Group have also secured 15-year Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) from the Consortium, under which each will buy 50% of the power generated by the wind farms. Van Oord will execute the “Balance of Plant” for the project, consisting of the engineering, procurement and construction of the foundations and inter array cables. The offshore substation Borssele Beta will be designed and constructed by TenneT. During the first 15 years of operation, Blauwwind will receive a guaranteed price of €54.49/MWh under the Dutch SDE+ scheme, after which the power will be sold at prevailing rates in the wholesale power market. The project capex for the construction phase is €1.3 billion, part of which will be funded through project finance.