Tight Schedule Raises Unique Challenges

Technical Due Diligence Helps Bring Multi-Site Wind Farm Project to Financial Close

Financial closure for the Black Lough, Three Trees and Enros wind farms, marked another technical due diligence success for Black & Veatch Europe’s renewable energy team. The company was working on behalf of ING Bank, a branch of ING-DiBa AG, a major backer of renewable energy and sustainability projects globally.

Black Lough is a 14.1 megawatt (MW), six-turbine array in County Sligo, Republic of Ireland. Three Tree and Enros are respectively 4.6 MW and 2.3 MW (two and one-turbine) projects in County Donegal, Republic of Ireland. The projects’ sponsor was SMR. Black & Veatch’s technical due diligence team encompassed environmental consulting, civil and electrical engineering evaluations and leading-edge digital wind yield analytics. The team provided ING with a full technical assessment of the project’s sustainability, buildability and profitability. Black & Veatch also delivered construction monitoring services.

Drawing upon its expertise in every element of the project lifecycle - wind energy engineering, operation and economics - is what makes the Europe team a trusted advisor for this kind of technical due diligence work.

The wind farms were some of the last Irish projects to be supported via the Renewable Energy Feed-in Tariff (REFIT) 2 Scheme, and in order to qualify had to meet tight construction deadlines. SMR’s confidence in the project was such that construction was initiated ahead of financial close. Delivery of due diligence while construction was progressing created a unique set of challenges. It required a nimble team to deal with the fast-progressing status of the project.

As well as their own expertise, the Black Lough team had ready access to a wealth of Black & Veatch’s international experience, ensuring support for the client was informed by global best practise.