Moray West, a significant offshore wind farm development, has acquired a £95.5 million loan from Barclays to finance the project’s construction throughout the following phase as part of a broader syndicated £2 billion loan infusion that will be finished in April 2023.
The project, which is a component of Ocean Winds’ portfolio, seeks to cut CO2 emissions by about 1.1 million tonnes and has sufficient capacity of supplying electricity to about 1.33 million homes.
By 2025, Moray West, which is located 22 kilometers off the Moray Firth coast, is expected to supply half of Scotland’s electrical needs.
The latest funding will will be used to support the project’s construction and supply chain activities allowing installation work to start later this year.
“The support of Barclays has contributed to Moray West reaching financial closure. This means we are now on track to commence the next phase of the project which will see the installation of the wind farm in late 2023,” said the project director at Moray West, Adam Morrison
“Our close working relationship with Barclays has given us the support required to meet the UK and Scottish government renewable energy targets.”
Barclays is still one of only seven banks in the UK’s Contract for Difference allocation rounds to have funded two project-financed offshore wind projects that were aiming to break new ground with complicated offtake agreement techniques.[1]
The bank served as a stand-alone pre-hedge executor, putting in place interest rate, inflation, and foreign exchange hedges to protect the project in a precarious macroeconomic environment.
It carried out the hedges as soon as the project was awarded the Contract for Difference in July 2022, and then syndicated them to the lending banks at the financial closure.
Barclays has particular competence in the very illiquid inflation hedge, which it is able to place due to its first-in-class distribution infrastructure.
According to Managing Director of Barclays Corporate Banking in Scotland, Jamie Grant, “Barclays expertise and sophisticated approach to the financing of such a major development in Scotland’s green economy reinforces our ability to support key clients in the renewables sector which look to innovate with revenue offtake strategies.”
“With the commodity cost escalations that have been experienced recently, it is likely that more renewable developers will also consider innovation with their offtake strategies and we are well placed to support projects like Moray West,” he added.
References
- Barclays Plc, ‘Barclays supports offshore wind farm which aims to supply 50 percent of Scotland’s electricity’, 4 July 2023, https://home.barclays/news/press-releases/2023/07/barclays-supports-offshore-wind-farm-which-aims-to-supply-50-per/[↩]
