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Nieuwsbrief
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Belwind

  • Infrastructure projects
  • Energy
Infra - Energie

Following the bankruptcy of Dutch parent company E-concern, three Belgian investors rushed to the rescue, including PMV. They managed to save the project for the largest wind farm in the North Sea from certain doom after all by making financing available at very short notice, both at the level of equity, subordinated loans and guarantees.

In 2009, the successful rescue operation received several awards from the British trade press. Belwind has since been operational since 2011 and is realising its budget. Built forty-six kilometres off the coast of Zeebrugge, the first phase has a total capacity of 165 megawatts. The Belgian consortium Seawind (Deme, CG Holdings, Fabricom-GTI Suez and Iemants Staalbouw-Smulders) delivered a totally new concept for transforming electricity and transporting it to the coast. The park produces half a terawatt hour (TWh = 1,000,000 Kwh) of electricity. That is enough to supply as many as 175,000 families with green electricity, saving 270,000 tonnes of CO2 per year.

PMV’s role

PMV invested a total of EUR 16.1 million in the form of capital and a subordinated loan. The total investment amounts to €650 million. A significant part of it will benefit employment in Flanders and in Belgium. Thanks to PMV’s knowledge of project financing, combined with its knowledge of energy and corporate finance, a decision could be taken very quickly on the financing of the fully developed project, which unfortunately had ended up in a bankruptcy scenario. Without PMV (and its partners), the project could not have become a reality.

The project in numbers

  • Cost: EUR 650 million;
  • Financing method: non-recourse project financing with bank financing and risk capital from shareholders;
  • Start-up: the construction phase started in 2009;
  • Delivered: the project was delivered in 2011.

Other partners

  • Colruyt nv
  • Korys nv
  • Parkwind nv
  • Meewind bv
  • ActivityRenewable energy
Tom Mortier Head of Energy Transition Tom.Mortier@pmv.eu +32 (0)2 274 64 48