June 20, 2013
Massachusetts

Danish company promises $200 million to Cape Wind

By Ariel Wittenberg | June 19, 2013 | www.southcoasttoday.com

A Danish pension company has promised to invest $200 million in Cape Wind providing the project’s financing is closed by the end of the year.

PensionDanmark has financed a number of offshore wind farms in Europe, including the Anholt Wind Farm which was visited by a number of New Bedford and Massachusetts officials in April.

“We are thrilled to have PensionDanmark involved because they are the investors that understand offshore wind the best,” Cape Wind spokesman Mark Rodgers said. “To us this is a sign of confidence from the investors.”

Reached by phone, Pension Danmark CEO Torben Möger Pedersen called Cape Wind a “copy and paste” of the Anholt Wind Farm.

“We feel very comfortable with the risk associated with the project,” he said, saying he expects it will bring “stable returns.”

Rodgers said PensionDanmark’s contribution is essential to Cape Wind benefiting from a federal government tax credit for renewable energy projects.

“If we finalize financing by the end of this year, the project could be eligible for the tax credit,” he said.

PensionDanmark is the second major investor Cape Wind has secured. In March, the developer secured debt capital from the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UJF. The amount of financing from BTMU for the project has not been released.

This is not PensionDanmark’s first American investment; it has also helped fund onshore wind farms in Texas and Pennsylvania.

Pedersen said he feels a “great amount of excitement that we can be an investor in the first offshore wind park in the United States.”

“We hope it will be the first of a long string of offshore parks in New England,” he said.

Pedersen said New England is “very similar” to Northwestern Europe, where offshore wind farms have taken off because both regions are very windy but are heavily populated onshore.

“Our main objective is to invest in something with a good yield, but if we can combine our profit targets with support for institutions that bring sustainable environment, we feel it is very important to assist them,” he said.

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2013/06/20/danish-company-promises-200-million-to-cape-wind/