Smith Square Partners is acting as financial adviser to the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets (“Ofgem”)

Smith Square Partners is pleased to announce its appointment, with consortium partner firms Centrus and CEPA, by the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets (“Ofgem”) as financial adviser on the competitive tender process to select the offshore transmission owners (“OFTOs”) of electricity transmission cable assets for the Triton Knoll and Moray East offshore wind farms. The transmission assets will command capital values in excess of £1 billion in aggregate. The consortium has been appointed under the Crown Commercial Service Corporate Finance Services framework. The tender competition is being run under the Tender Round 7 (“TR7”) process. An industry launch event for TR7 attended by infrastructure investors, debt finance providers, insurers and technical consultants will be held on 20 November 2020.

Triton Knoll wind farm is an 850MW wind farm under construction 33km off the coast of Lincolnshire with an expected completion date in 2022. Moray East is a 950MW wind farm 22km off the Aberdeenshire coast with an expected completion date in 2022. Together, they will produce energy sufficient to power approximately 2 million homes.

In addition to Smith Square Partners’ corporate finance expertise, the consortium brings together the highly regarded specialist capabilities and sector experience of Centrus and CEPA. Centrus is a debt focussed financial advisory firm with strong expertise in the economic regulated infrastructure sector. CEPA is a global economics and regulatory consultancy which has previously advised Ofgem on a wide range of assignments in the OFTO sector, including two previous tender rounds. In addition, as part of the consortium, tax advice will be provided by BDO and Grant Thornton will carry out the forensic cost reviews of the two wind farms. Both firms have strong sector experience, with Grant Thornton having undertaken similar cost assessment for previous tender processes for Ofgem.