Herbert Smith Freehills advises RES Australia on Dulacca Wind Farm

Herbert Smith Freehills has advised RES Australia on the development, offtake, project financing and sale of the Dulacca Wind Farm to be located in the Western Downs region of Queensland. The wind farm will comprise 43 Vestas wind turbines to generate 180MW of renewable power and is supported by a long-term offtake agreement with the Queensland Government owned CleanCo.

The Dulacca Wind Farm was acquired at Financial Close by Octopus Australia and RES Australia's construction and asset management team will continue to support the delivery of the Project. Commonwealth Bank of Australia, ING Bank (Australia) Limited, MUFG Bank, Ltd, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation and Westpac Banking Corporation have committed the construction and term project financing debt facilities.

The cross-practice Herbert Smith Freehills team was led by partners David Ryan (M&A), Gerard Pike (Project Finance), Elizabeth Charlesworth (Project Finance), Luke Simpson (Property), Peter Davis (Offtake) and Toby Anderson (Construction and Asset Management). They were supported by senior associates Arnica Mullins, Josh Singer and Sam Cooper, and solicitors Jacqui Fetchet, Michael Bidwell, Hiroko Ito, Josephine MacMillan, Aditya Shivam and Stephanie Simm.

Luke Simpson said: “It has been a pleasure to advise RES Australia on Dulacca. This is an excellent Queensland wind project which is the next big step in a growing renewables generation fleet in the Queensland market."

Gerard Pike added: “Credit to RES, Octopus, the Banks, Vestas, Ergon Energy and CleanCo in bringing this project to financial close and into construction under extremely challenging lockdown conditions in the southern States."

This deal is another example of Herbert Smith Freehills’ market-leading work in the renewable energy sector. Other recent examples include advising:

• Powering Australian Renewables’ financiers on the NZ$3.07 billion acquisition of Tilt Renewables
• Swancor Renewable Energy on Taiwanese mega-scale offshore wind projects
• Mitsubishi Corporation on its investment in a 600MW onshore wind power project in Laos
• New Energy Solar Limited on the sale of its Australian solar farms
• Blueleaf Energy on 1.25GW solar partnership in the Philippines
• the financiers on the project financing of UPC\AC Renewables’ New England Solar Farm