Norway. Helgeland Kraft AS
| Date of agreement: | 04 Apr 2016 |
|---|---|
| Country: | Norway |
| Customer: | Helgeland Kraft AS |
| Amount in NOR: | NOR 470 million |
| Amount in EUR: | EUR 49.8 million |
| Maturity: | 15 years |
| NACE sector / loan type: | Production and distribution of electricity |
This loan contributes to climate change mitigation: 100%
Financing from NIB Environmental Bond proceeds
NEB-eligible share: 89%
NEB category: Renewable energy generation
Amount disbursed: EUR 45.8 million
Note: For loans in other currencies than EUR, the equivalent in EUR is based on the exchange rate effective for the disbursement. Read more about the NIB Environmental Bonds
Project
The loan has been provided for financing six hydropower plants with an estimated total annual generation capacity of 166 GWh in the Helgeland region of Nordland County in Norway. This amounts to about 16% of Helgeland Kraft’s total production. The project will increase the security of supply to the Nasdaq (Nordpool) electricity pool.
Project Tosbotn involves the construction of five new hydropower plants in the municipality of Brønnøy; Leiråa, Bjørnstokk, Tverråa, Storelva and Tosdalen. Construction of the plants started in May 2014, and their estimated total annual production is 133 GWh. The plants are scheduled to start operations between April 2016 and September 2017.
The sixth hydro power plant is Øvre Forsland, which is the last of four hydropower plants that has been built at the river Forslandselva in Leirfjord municipality in Nordland County. The plant was commissioned in March 2015, and officially opened by the Minister of Petroleum and Energy Tord Lien in August 2015.
Helgeland Kraft AS has 12 hydroelectric power plants with an annual production of 1,100 GWh. The utility is owned by 14 municipalities in the region of Helgeland in Nordland, where it distributes electricity to around 80,000 inhabitants through its 7,800 kilometer distribution network. The average number of full-time employees was 280 at the end of 2015.
Fulfilment of NIB's mandate
Competitiveness:
The project will increase security of supply and new generation capacity.
Although the storage capacity of the new production is marginal, the value of the new capacity is considerably higher than that of similar investments in other generation technologies. An increase in low-cost production ensures the utilisation of the existing hydropower resources in the Nord Pool region and raises the competitive pressure on the other producers in the electricity pool.
Environment:
Hydropower is in general an environmentally efficient way of generating electricity.
One of the six hydropower plants, the Leiråa hydropower plant has regulation possibilities and a dam capacity of 3 GWh.
Sustainability summary
Environmental assessments have been carried out as part of the concession applications for all the six hydropower plants.
Between 70-80 % of the water flow will be utilised for power generation and 1-2 km of the rivers will be bypassed. The hydropower concessions contain conditions on minimum flows, basically equivalent to lowest recorded flow prior to the project implementation.
