Banks Provide Project Financing for Wind Power in City

Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, a major Japanese bank, and the Yamaguchi Bank Ltd., a regional bank, provided financing of a total of 2.5 billion yen (about U.S.$21 million) to a wind-power project in Kitakyushu City by means of project finance.

The project is operated by the NS Wind Power Hibiki Co. in Kitakyushu City, Fukuoka Prefecture. The generating capacity is 15 megawatts, which is generated by ten 1.5-megawatt wind turbines made by GE Wind Energy Corporation, and the total project cost is 3 billion yen (about U.S.$25.2 million). This is the largest-ever wind power project in western Japan, and also the first-ever large wind power project developed in any one of Japan's "ordinance-designated" cities (the 13 largest cities in Japan, excluding Tokyo).

NS Wind Power Hibiki has plans to sell the electricity generated to Kyushu Electric Power Co. for 15 years. The financing method is known as "project finance," in which the primary source of funds for repayment is the income gained from selling the product to the client. This is the first case in Japan in which a major bank and a local bank cooperate to finance a wind power project by means of project finance.



Posted: 2003/05/13 09:28:20 AM
Japanese version