Hamburg – Aquila Clean Energy EMEA, Aquila Capital’s clean energy development platform in Europe, has finalised a EUR 1 billion construction facility supported by the InvestEU programme. The bespoke construction facility consists of EUR 400 million credit from the European Investment Bank (EIB), supported by an EU budget guarantee under the new InvestEU programme, and EUR 600 million from a consortium of the commercial banks. The consortium comprises Santander, NatWest, KfW IPEX-Bank, BNP Paribas, ING, Intesa Sanpaolo Luxembourg and Banco Sabadell and with Santander acting as the Facility and Security Agent, NatWest as Documentation Agent and KfW IPEX-Bank as Hedging Documentation Agent. For the total project volume of over EUR 2 billion, the remaining amount of more than EUR 1 billion will come from funds managed by Aquila Capital and from equity. For the EIB, it was a ground-breaking project and it is one of the largest loans ever granted under a project finance structure.
An international CMS team headed by lead partners Dr Marc Riede and Dr Kerstin Block advised Aquila Capital on all legal aspects of this innovative financing, including its structuring and implementation.
The financing will support the development and construction of Aquila Clean Energy’s renewable energy pipeline in Spain and Portugal over the next three years. The pipeline consists of more than 50 projects of predominately solar photovoltaics and onshore wind assets, with a total electricity generation capacity of 2.6 gigawatts. This volume is equivalent to the annual consumption of around 1.4 million households. The projects will have an estimated yield of 5.3 terawatt hours per year. The project is aligned with the EU’s renewable energy targets.
CMS Germany
Dr Marc Riede, Co-Lead Partner, Hamburg
Dr Kerstin Block, Co-Lead Partner, Hamburg
Carl Werner, Principal Counsel, Hamburg
Dr Anja Hasselmann-Thiede, Counsel, Hamburg
Moritz Gerstmayr, Counsel, Frankfurt
Nicolai Bischof, Senior Associate, Hamburg, all Banking & Finance
Dr Olaf Thießen, Principal Counsel, Hamburg, Tax
CMS Spain
Guillermo Muñoz-Alonso, Partner, Madrid
Víctor Sanjuán Mira, Associate, Madrid, both Banking & Finance
CMS Portugal
Francisco Xavier de Almeida, Partner, Lisbon
Filipa Branco, Senior Associate, Lisbon
Gonçalo Moncada, Associate, Lisbon, all Banking & Finance
Patrick Dewerbe, Partner, Lisbon
Susana Goncalves, Managing Associate, Lisbon, both Tax
CMS Luxembourg
Vivian Walry, Partner, Luxembourg
Zornitsa Dimitrova, Counsel, Luxembourg
Suzanne Chibane, Associate, Luxembourg, all Banking & Finance
CMS UK
Jason Harding, Partner, London
Kirsty Templar, Senior Associate, London
Anubha Shrivastava, Associate, London, all Banking & Finance
Press Contact
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