ICBC contributes $59.73 million AUD to the $119.46 million AUD tranche of a $229.46 million AUD syndicated loan for the 144 MW Cattle Hill Wind Farm Project (Linked to Record ID#93218)

Project narrative

On March 28, 2019, a syndicate of three banks — the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ), and Westpac Banking Corporation — signed a $229.46 million AUD ($162.80 million USD) syndicated facility (loan) agreement with Wild Cattle Hill Pty Ltd (WCHPL) — a special purpose vehicle jointly owned by Chinese companies PowerChina Resources Ltd. (80%) and Goldwind Capital Australia Pty Ltd. (20%) — for the 144 MW Cattle Hill Wind Farm Project. This loan was divided into two term loan tranches, each with a maturity period of five years and a final maturity date of March 28, 2024: a $110.00 million AUD ($78.05 million USD) tranche and a $119.46 million AUD ($84.76 million USD) tranche. ICBC, ANZ, and Westpac each contributed $36.67 million AUD ($26.02 million USD) to the $110 million AUD tranche. ICBC and Westpac each contributed $59.73 million AUD ($42.38 million USD) to the $119.46 million AUD tranche. Record ID#93218 captures ICBC's contribution to the $110 million AUD tranche. Record ID#95379 captures ICBC's contribution to the $119.46 million AUD tranche. Goldwind provided $19.67 million AUD ($13.96 million USD) in equity and PowerChina provided $78.67 million AUD ($55.82 million USD) in equity for a combined $98.34 million AUD ($69.77 million USD) in equity. The project had a total value of $327.80 million AUD ($232.58 million USD). The proceeds of this loan were used to finance the construction of the Cattle Hill Wind Farm, a 144 MW wind located on the eastern shore of Lake Echo in the southern part of the Central Plateau of Tasmania. The specific project site covered 3,500 hectares of a ridge with an average elevation of 900 meters accessible through Bashan Road and Monpeelyata road. The wind farm was compromised of 48 170-meter tall Goldwind GW140 3 MW turbines. Each of these turbines had a blade length of 68.7 meters, a blade weight of 25.3 tons with a 4.5-meter wide and 5.2-meter high nacelle, a cut-in and cut-out wind speed of 2.5 meters per second and over 20 meters per second, respectively, and a rotor length of 140 meters and swept area of 14,712 square meters. Each turbine foundation required 500 cubic meters of concrete, 58 tons of steel, and a 16 ton bolt stage. In addition to the construction of the wind farm, the project included the construction of site offices, operation and maintenance facilities, storage facilities for equipment, parking areas, access roads 27-kilometer long and 7-meter wide, and underground, low-voltage transmission lines to connect to overhead high-voltage transmission lines. The energy generated at Cattle Hill was transmitted by a 3-kilometer long 220 kV transmission to Waddamana substation, which is owned and operated by TasNetworks. The wind farm's designed output was equivalent of the energy consumption of 63,500 Tasmanian homes. Upon full commercial operations, the wind farm was projected to sell about 500,000 megawatt hours (MWh) of electricity every year to the Tasmanian grid. The wind farm would increase the State of Tasmania's entire renewable energy generation by about 5%, helping advance policy goals to make the state entirely self-sufficient in renewable energy by 2022. The project was also expected to create up to 150 jobs during peak construction. This project was PowerChina's first entry into the Australian market. Uniquely, the project featured IndentiFlight, Australia's first-ever aerial monitoring and detection system for avoiding turbine-related bird deaths, specifically those related to the local sub-species of the endangered Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagle, affectionally referred to as "Wedgies", — an important condition of the approval of the Cattle Hill Wind Farm was the protection of the Wedgies, with the planning permit conditions only allowing for five eagle mortalities during the first year of operation of the wind farm. The IndentiFlight system consisted of 16 tower-mounted optical units spread across the wind farm were designed to detect flying objects. Once detected, artificial intelligence would then be used to identify them as eagles, and, should the eagle's speed and flight trajectory be calculated to cross into a turbine, the system would shut that turbine down. Only one eagle mortality has occurred from the activation of the first turbine in November 2019 to August 2021, with the system viewed as a great success, sending about 400 shutdown signals to turbines daily for an average downtime of over 2 minutes, or 14.5 hours cumulatively every day across the wind farm's 48 turbines. The IdentiFlight system has also served as a valuable store of information on eagle behavior, with further applications for the eagles' preservation and general harmonization of bird-turbine relations. NP Power had initially developed the project before Goldwind acquired it in September 2017. Goldwind was responsible for the provision of the 48 turbines. Boom Logistics was responsible for lifting and mechanical and electrical installation. Blue Water Shipping was responsible for the transportation of the turbine components from Lianyungang, China to in the Port of Bell Bay in Tasmania to the project site. Hazell Brothers served as the main contractor for the civil and electrical works for the project. It awarded a sub-contract to RJE for the balance of plant (BOP) electric works. WCHPL contracted Entura to serve as the owner's engineer and, separately, was awarded a contract by TasNetworks to provide grid connection services from the wind farm to the substation at Waddamana. TasNetworks named Zinfra as the contractor for the substation works. Gradco was responsible for implementing road upgrades at the project site. Crisp Bros & Haywards won a $8 million AUD ($6.04 million USD) contract to supply tower components. Tasmania state-owned Aurora Energy signed a long-term agreement in 2017 for the offtake of renewable energy certificates produced by the wind farm. Site access constructions work began the week of March 27, 2018. The first wind turbine foundation was poured in November 2018. The wind farm was planned to be completed before December 31, 2019. Bush fires in the Central Highlands of Tasmania interrupted construction; construction resumed in February 2019. The project held an opening ceremony on December 6, 2019, commemorating the first generation of energy; however, at this point, only 31 of the 48 wind turbines had been installed and work was still ongoing. The wind farm’s first full operations was achieved by August 5, 2020. The formal handover ceremony was held on November 26, 2020.