15th January 2021
TRIG is acquiring equity interests in both Beatrice offshore wind farm, which is located off the north east coast of Scotland, and East Anglia One, which is located off the coast of Suffolk in the North Sea. The two additions, sourced and transacted by InfraRed, TRIG’s investment manager, take TRIG’s number of offshore wind assets to five, representing 35% of the portfolio’s value.
Beatrice is a 588MW offshore wind farm developed by SSE plc using 84 Siemens 7MW turbines. TRIG acquired its 17.5% equity interest in the wind farm from Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners. Co-shareholders are SSE plc (40%), funds managed by Equitix (who are also acquiring a 17.5% stake from CIP and is partnered with TRIG on the Sheringham Shoal offshore wind farm), and Red Rock Power Limited (25%).
East Anglia One is a newly constructed 714MW offshore wind farm developed by ScottishPower Renewables, a subsidiary of Iberdrola, a global energy leader with 34GW of installed renewables capacity. The project uses the same 7MW turbines supplied by Siemens. TRIG’s 14.3% indirect equity interest in the wind farm has been acquired from the Green investment Group. For the transaction, TRIG has partnered with InfraRed’s European Infrastructure Income Fund 4, which is acquiring a 5.7% indirect equity interest in the project alongside TRIG. This is consistent with TRIG’s strategy of partnering with aligned co-investors on larger transactions.
As is usual, TRIG finances its acquisitions using a combination of retained earnings and its revolving credit facility, which is repaid from fresh equity capital raises.
As recently highlighted by the UK Government, offshore wind projects have a significant role to play in the decarbonisation of the UK economy and are crucial to the UK’s ambition to meet net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Beatrice provides enough clean energy to power the equivalent of more than 450,000 homes, and East Anglia One provides enough clean energy to power the equivalent of more than 630,000 homes.
