Global investment firm KKR and RWE have signed an agreement under which KKR acquire a 50 per cent stake in each of RWE’s Norfolk Vanguard East and Norfolk Vanguard West offshore wind projects, totalling 3.1 GW in installed capacity. The wind farms were just awarded Contracts for Difference (CfDs) in the UK’s seventh CfD allocation round (AR7).
The two Norfolk Vanguard projects, which RWE bought from Vattenfall in March 2024 , have already secured seabed rights, grid connections, development consent orders (DCOs) and all other key permits.
On 14 January, RWE said it launched the process to raise non-recourse project finance debt for the projects and that it expects the closing of the partnership transaction and the project financing, as well as the final investment decision (FID), in the summer of 2026.
Located 50 to 80 kilometres off the coast of Norfolk, the two offshore wind farms are planned to be commissioned in 2029 (Norfolk Vanguard West) and 2030 (Norfolk Vanguard East).
Once operational, the projects will be able to generate enough electricity to power around 3 million UK homes, according to RWE, which also said that going forward, it would assess opportunities to extend its collaboration with KKR to additional projects.
In the UK’s CfD Allocation Round 7 (AR7), RWE secured CfDs at a strike price of GBP 91.20/MWh (around EUR 105.25/MWh) for Norfolk Vanguard East and Norfolk Vanguard West, as well as for three more offshore wind farms: Dogger Bank South East, Dogger Bank South West and Awel y Môr.
RWE owns the Dogger Bank South projects in partnership with Masdar (49 per cent), while its Awel y Môr partners are Stadtwerke München (30 per cent) and Siemens Financial Services (10 per cent) .