With wind energy becoming the lowest cost of energy solution in many markets, the global wind energy market is expanding and creating new opportunities that involve new customer segments, partnership constellations, technology solutions and financing structures.
As the global leader in wind energy, Vestas continues to be highly involved in this evolution and is together with key partners developing solutions that address a wind park’s full value chain and hereby maximise return on investment and profitability.
Highlighting this development, Vestas has today entered into a partnership with Swedish utility, Vattenfall, and Danish pension fund, PKA, for a 353 MW wind energy project in Sweden. For the project, which is PKA’s first investment in onshore wind, Vestas will provide 353 MW of V136-4.2 MW turbines as well as become a shareholder through a share purchase agreement for 40 percent of the project. PKA and Vattenfall will own 30 percent project equity each. The project’s total construction funding is around EUR 350m and will be partially funded by non-recourse project financing while financial close is expected to be finalised in the coming months.
To grasp further opportunities in this emerging space and develop additional revenue streams, Vestas aims to engage in project solutions with customers and investors that have strong track records within sustainable energy. Depending on project and customer needs, such solutions may include co-development, financial solutions or equity investments, and hereby go beyond supplying, installing, and servicing turbines as well as full engineering, procurement and construction projects. By doing so, Vestas secures project pipeline and creates attractive and profitable investment opportunities.
“The cost of renewable energy is going down, which is making the market more competitive and creating new opportunities. In this dynamic market, we continue to leverage our deep expertise across the entire value chain to develop solutions with our customers that produce the lowest cost of energy. With our partners on this project, I believe we have shown our ability to tailor the right solutions and, in doing so, advance our business according to our strategy”, states Anders Runevad, President and CEO of Vestas.
The project has been developed by Vattenfall and consists of 84 V136-4.2 MW turbines to be installed across the Blakliden and Fäbodberget wind parks located in Åsele and Lycksele Municipality in central Sweden. Blakliden and Fäbodberget wind parks will consist of 50 and 34 turbines respectively.
“It is highly gratifying that we can now continue our expansion of onshore wind farms in Sweden. Blakliden/Fäbodberget represents an important step in our strategy to become fossil free within one generation. It is also important for Vattenfall to demonstrate that we are making a major investment in renewables in Sweden”, says Magnus Hall, President and CEO of Vattenfall.
Having previously invested in five offshore wind parks, PKA’s first investment in onshore wind underlines the attractive investment case onshore wind energy offers from a pension fund’s perspective. Peter Damgaard, CEO of PKA says:
“The model created for this investment can be copied to other similar investments as we have seen it with our investments in offshore wind parks. We focus on this type of investments because we continue to find interesting opportunities in combining good returns to our members with mitigation of climate change. For us it is good business and common sense, and we therefore don’t expect this to be our last investment in onshore wind”.
Nils de Baar, President of Vestas Northern and Central Europe adds “This project underlines Vestas’ strong ability to work with our partners to optimise projects to make them even more competitive, which is key to our continued market-leadership in Sweden. Both Vattenfall and PKA have strong track records within sustainable energy and we are honoured to partner with them on a project that exemplifies how Vestas’ solutions meet the full scope of our customers’ challenges, including financing”.
The order includes supply and installation of the wind turbines as well as a 25-year Active Output Management (AOM 5000) service contract. Turbine delivery is expected to begin in first half of 2021 with full commissioning planned for fourth quarter of 2021.
About Vattenfall
Vattenfall is a leading European energy company, that for more than 100 years has electrified industries, supplied energy to people’s homes and modernised our way of living through innovation and cooperation. We now want to make fossil-free living possible within one generation. Therefore we are driving the transition to a more sustainable energy system through growth in renewable production and climate smart energy solutions for our customers. We employ approximately 20,000 people and have operations mainly in Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, the UK and Finland. Vattenfall is owned by the Swedish state. For more information: corporate.www.vattenfall.com
About PKA
PKA Ltd. is one of the largest pension service providers for labour market pension funds in Denmark. Their 300,000 members work primarily in the public sector. PKA invest approximately DKK 275bn (EUR 36bn) on behalf of their members. PKA has a special focus on investing in projects that help to mitigate the effects of climate change. They have invested approximately DKK 19bn (EUR 2.3bn) in climate-related projects and have currently investments in five offshore wind farms.
About Vestas
Vestas is the energy industry’s global partner on sustainable energy solutions. We design, manufacture, install, and service wind turbines across the globe, and with 92 GW of wind turbines in 79 countries, we have installed more wind power than anyone else. Through our industry-leading smart data capabilities and unparalleled 78 GW of wind turbines under service, we use data to interpret, forecast, and exploit wind resources and deliver best-in-class wind power solutions. Together with our customers, Vestas’ more than 23,900 employees are bringing the world sustainable energy solutions to power a bright future.We invite you to learn more about Vestas by visiting our website at http://www.vestas.com
