July 3, 2007
Scotland
Scotland
Airtricity, the green energy company led by Eddie O’Connor, is understood to have completed a £62m (€91.7m) fundraising for the development of two Scottish wind farms which are currently in construction.
Both projects are being funded by Germany’s Norddeutsche Landesbank through a senior debt facility spanning a term of 15 years.
The first development, a 36.8 megawatt (MW) wind farm at Minsca, near Lockerbie, is expected to be completed early next year.
The second, a 30 (MW) wind farm at Dalswinton, in southwest Scotland, is due to be up an running by the end of next January.
Combined, the two wind farms will have the capacity to supply energy to about 45,000 homes.
Airtricity established a link with Norddeutsche Landesbank last year when the German bank arranged a €60m senior debt facility for the development of its 48 (MW) wind farm at Bindoo in Co Cavan.
Bindoo has been in operation since March of this year.
Megawatts
Founded a decade ago, Airtricity operates more than 500 megawatts of wind farms in Ireland, Britain and America.
The group, which is 41pc-owned by infrastructure conglomerate NTR, has over 6,500MW of wind projects in development – mainly in Britain and America.
Mr O’Connor also harbours a long-term ambition of building a pan-European sub-sea electricity supply grid.
The ‘supergrid’ project would initially see 10 gigawatts of wind farms being built in the North Sea and connected to the national grids in Britain, Germany and the Netherlands at a cost of €22 billion.
By Joe Brennan
3 July 2007
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2007/07/03/airtricity-gets-e92m-funding-for-two-scots-wind-farms/