ITPEnergised has provided advisory and due diligence review services to the New Development Bank (NDB), a multilateral bank established by BRICS nations – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The review was focused on the provision of sovereign loans for a Chinese offshore wind project with potential to provide over 250MW of new capacity.

In May 2016, ITPEnergised’s staff visited the project in China and met with the project companies to discuss the details of their proposed project. ITPEnergised carried out due diligence reviews of the planning and feasibility work already undertaken and identified risks to the construction phase and future operation of the project. Subsequently, in November 2016, the NDB approved a CNY 2 billion (EUR 273 million) loan for the new 250MW phase of the Putian Pinghai Bay offshore wind power project in Fujian Province, China. This latest phase of the Pinghai Bay project will add to the existing 50MW phase 1, which features ten XEMC XE128-5MW, direct drives turbines – the first Chinese offshore wind project to use this turbine type – installed in around 10m of water depth and approximately 8km from the Chinese mainland. Phase 1 was constructed during late 2015 and the first half of 2016 and has been fully commissioned since the summer of 2016.

The NDB’s loans to the Chinese state-owned project developers will help to ease the issues currently being experienced in China’s industry and accelerate the development progress. Though the wind speeds in the provinces of Fujian are comparable to those found in European markets, the site, environmental, political, metocean, seabed and supply chain conditions are all very different and require a local approach rather than a direct replication of existing, international common practices.