John Laing to invest EUR45-50m in German wind farm

John Laing said it will invest around €45-50m to acquire the Klettwitz wind farm in Brandenburg Schipkau, Germany from Ventotec, the developer of the site.

In addition to Laing’s investment, the Klettwitz wind farm will be refinanced with new project finance. The acquisition remains conditional on securing satisfactory project financing and certain other conditions.

Laing, which is a developer, owner and operator of housing, property and infrastructure, said total installed capacity is 89 megawatts from 27 wind turbines after repowering and replacing previous total installed capacity of 59MW from 36 turbines at the legacy wind farm previously in operation at the site. The project benefits from a feed in tariff for up to 20 years, it added.

The deal is expected to close before the end of November.

Chief executive Olivier Brousse said: "Our investment in Klettwitz takes John Laing into renewable energy in Germany for the first time and provides us with an attractive project.

“Investing in wind turbine repowering is an area where we believe there are likely to be further opportunities to capitalise on the major advances in wind turbine technology made in recent years. We remain on track to achieve our stated investment target for this year."