TRIG pays £80m for first offshore wind farm investment

Renewables Infrastructure Group (TRIG) has paid £80m for a 14.7% stake in the Sheringham Shoal offshore wind farm in the North Sea.

The purchase, including transaction costs, is the investment company's first in an offshore wind project. The investment is held in a new joint venture with funds managed by Equitix Ltd, which will own 25.3% of the wind farm.

Sheringham Shoal has 316.8MW of capacity and was originally developed by Statoil, which owns 40% of the project alongside Macquarie's Green Investment Group, which holds 20%. The site was commissioned in 2012 and has 88 Siemens 3.6MW turbines.

Helen Mahy, TRIG's chairman, said her company had been considering a wind-farm investment for the past few years. Sheringham Shoal is backed by experienced renewables investors and is the right project for a first step into the market, she said.

Mahy said: "The board of TRIG is delighted to conclude the company's first investment in offshore wind, an industry in which the UK has built a leading global market share and which is expected to contribute a significant proportion of the UK's renewable energy capacity build-out in the medium-term."

TRIG paid for the investment using the group's revolving acquisition facility, on which it has drawn £106m.