European private equity group HgCapital has closed a £28m project financing facility with the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) for the Hall Farm wind project being developed in the UK by RidgeWind.
RidgeWind is owned by an HgCapital fund, with construction of the 24MW project, located in the East Riding of Yorkshire, to begin soon.
RBS provided £28m in construction and term project finance loans as mandated lead arranger and hedging bank.
Dine Glasgow, COO of RidgeWind, said, 'Achieving this milestone in today's financial climate is a testament to the quality of the RidgeWind-HgCapital team, the project, and our project partners. The RBS team's renewable energy experience combined with REpower's proven track record and Statkraft's expertise expedited the financing process.'
Construction is scheduled to begin later this month with the project due to become operational in November 2012. The turbines for the plant are to be provided by REpower with Statkraft buying the power generated.
During the 25-year lifetime of the wind farm it will contribute about £900,000 to area residents in the form of a community fund and Glasgow said that during the construction phase he expects £1.5m will be spent in the local area.
RidgeWind manages more than 20 projects, which together have a capacity of 539MW. Of this, 102.2MW is already constructed with the remaining in the consenting, planning and development phases.