Clifford Chance has advised a consortium of international banks on the financing of an offshore wind farm off the northern coast of Germany called "Nordsee One".

The ten banks participating in the consortium advised by Clifford Chance included ABN AMRO, Bank of Montreal, Commerzbank, Export Development Canada, Helaba, KfW IPEX, National Bank of Canada, Natixis, Rabobank and The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi. In total, they are providing approximately 70% of the project’s required costs by way of an EUR 840 million non-recourse secured facility.

Northland Power Inc. and RWE Innogy GmbH, Essen (Germany), announced today that the EUR 1.2 billion Nordsee One project has reached financial close, with all of the  Sponsors equity contributed to the project and all debt required now fully committed by the project lenders.

Northland owns 85% of the 332 megawatt offshore wind farm to be located 40 kilometres north of Juist Island in German territorial waters in the North Sea, whilst RWE Innogy retains the remaining 15% interest.

Once operational, Nordsee One is expected to generate over 1,200 gigawatt hours of electricity per year with its 54 turbines, enough to meet the needs of approximately 400,000 German households.

The Clifford Chance team was led by partner Dr. Florian Mahler (Düsseldorf) and comprised counsel Jens Augst (Frankfurt), senior associate Dr. Axel Schlieter, associates Bahar Rahimyar and Kevin Wilcock (Düsseldorf), senior associate Anna Thwaites (Frankfurt) from Banking & Capital Markets, as well as partner Dr. Björn Heinlein, counsel Dr. Mathias ElspaB and senior associate Dr. Jutta Mues from Corporate/Energy and Infrastructure (Düsseldorf), and senior associates Jan Wittrodt (Frankfurt) and Dr. Philipp Heer (Düsseldorf), both Corporate. Counsel Hein Tonnaer and Associate Sarah Lewis (both in Banking & Capital Markets) were advising from Clifford Chance's Luxembourg office.