Aquila Capital is increasing the installed capacity of its Midtfjellet wind farm in Norway by 40 MW to a total of 150 MW. Eleven Nordex N117 turbines are to be installed, each of which has a 3.6 MW-rated output.
Midtfjellet has been in operation since 2013 and currently consists of 44 Nordex N100 and N90 wind turbines that were built in two construction phases. The windpark’s perfomance has been strong in the past with an annual production of around 322 GWh since commissioning.
The commissioning of the additional turbines of the third build-out phase is expected in early 2019 and this will increase the production of the wind park by about 110 GWh/year. The windpark is located directly on the coast, about 60 km from Norway's second largest city, and benefits from optimal wind conditions.
Susanne Wermter, Head of Investment Management Energy & Infrastructure EMEA at Aquila Capital, said: "We look forward to further expanding our successful cooperation with our Norwegian partners. The past few months have shown how value creation can result from collaborations between asset managers and strategic investors.”
Roman Rosslenbroich, CEO and Co-Founder of Aquila Capital, said: “Our majority stake in Midtfjellet Vindkraft AS was an important step for us in the implementation of our Renewable Energy Strategy in Scandinavia. The Nordics generally offer very good wind resources and wind power requires lower capital expenditures than in many other feed-in tariff markets, thus the levelized costs of energy of wind in such markets are very competitive.”
“We plan to further diversify the portfolio we manage through selected additional projects in Northern Europe and we are constantly reviewing potential target investments.”
Aquila Capital’s transaction volume in wind energy has now reached more than EUR 1 billion, based on assets with an installed capacity of more than 1 gigawatt.