TenneT has become one of the largest corporate issuers of sustainable, green debt financing in Europe, with over €10bn of green debt now issued.
The Dutch-German grid operator’s latest issue of €1.35bn is split in two tranches, of €600m (12-year term) and €750m (20-year term), with the support of six joint bookrunners that include ABN AMRO, Commerzbank, NatWest Markets and SMBC Nikko.
Proceeds will be used to invest in green projects in the Netherlands and Germany focused on connecting large-scale offshore wind to the onshore electricity grid and enhancing the onshore transmission capacity for renewable energy.
Further details on the projects and project selection process is set out in TenneT’s Green Financing Framework, published in February this year.
Types of projects described in the document include offshore platforms to connect offshore wind farms, offshore cables, onshore cables, linking shore to onshore stations and onshore substations located in Northern Germany and the Netherlands.
TenneT CFO Otto Jager said: “I am pleased to see that such a broad cross-section of European investors continue to have a keen interest in financing the energy transition.”
TenneT said that it expects its annual investments to grow from €3bn today, to approximately €4-5bn a year in the next five years.
The majority of TenneT’s investments are directly related to increasing renewables capacity, the grid operator said.
In the period up to 2030, TenneT said it expects to have realised approximately 28GW of connection capacity for offshore wind farms in the Dutch and German parts of the North Sea, transmitting an enough electricity to support the energy consumption of approximately 28 million households.
TenneT’s supervisory board has also nominated Maarten Abbenhuis as chief operations officer on the executive board of TenneT Holding, alongside COO Tim Meyerjurgens.
Abbenhuis succeeds Ben Voorhorst, who will leave TenneT on 1 June 2021 after 25 years at the company, having spent 114 of these as operational director.
Abbenhuis will take over from Voorhorst as of 1 January 2021. Ben Voorhorst has fulfilled this role as TenneT’s operational director with verve over the past 14 years.
Chairman of the supervisory board Ab van der Touw said: “During the 14 years that Ben Voorhorst has been working as COO, TenneT has undergone an unprecedented development.
“The supervisory board is extremely grateful to Ben Voorhorst for his visionary leadership.
“Under his down-to-earth and competent leadership, TenneT has grown into a leading TSO in Northwest Europe and a driving force behind the energy transition.”