KPMG Australia acted as financial adviser to Goldwind on its debt funding of the Cattle Hill Wind Farm (Cattle Hill). Goldwind is a global top-tier wind turbine supplier with more than 50 gigawatt (GW) and 31,000 wind turbines installed on six continents at the end of 2018. Goldwind is listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and Shenzhen Stock Exchange, and employs more than 8,000 staff globally. In Australia, Goldwind has more than 360 megawatt (MW) capacity in operation and a further 1,000 MW under construction.

PowerChina is a Chinese state-owned listed enterprise. A Fortune Global 500 company for the last 6 years, it has more than 187,000 employees, with a total installed electricity-generating capacity of about 200 GW. It is involved in engineering and construction of hydropower, wind power and thermal power plants, infrastructure construction, investments in energy and property development projects, and equipment manufacturing businesses.

Cattle Hill is a joint development between Goldwind (20 percent) and PowerChina (80 percent). Cattle Hill is a 148.4 MW wind farm, located near Lake Echo, Tasmania. Total construction cost is expected to be approximately A$300 million. The project will generate up to 150 jobs during peak construction and utilise 48 of Goldwind’s GW140 3S turbines. On full commercial operation, the wind farm will sell approximately 500,000 megawatt hours (MWh) of electricity per annum to the Tasmanian grid and is currently under construction, with planned completion before 31 December 2019. Cattle Hill marks PowerChina’s entry into the Australian market.

The innovative financing structure combines both non-recourse and recourse funding. It is a market-leading transaction containing a number of new and previously untested elements for a renewable energy project in Australia, and highlights the unique thinking that KPMG Australia brought to the engagement.

The banking syndicate includes Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Australian and New Zealand Banking Group, and Westpac Banking Corporation.

The deal is another example of KPMG’s work in the renewable energy markets including acting as commercial, financial and tax adviser to:

• First Solar on the sale of Manildra Solar Farm to New Energy Solar (ASX:NEW).
• Goldwind on the acquisition and debt raising for Stockyard Hill Wind Farm.
  
• Edify Energy on the sale of Daydream Solar Farm and Hayman Solar Farm to BlackRock.
  
• Edify on the sale of Darlington Point Solar Farm, which will be the largest solar farm in Australia, to Octopus.