Energy Transition Awards 2025: Outstanding Greenfield Deal showcase
Oliver CarrEU
MultisectorsMarket UpdateFinancingOn 26 November 2025, the energy transition's leading innovators, investors, and advisors will gather at the Pan Pacific London for the inspiratia Energy Transition Awards to celebrate the organisations and individuals delivering the projects that will define a net-zero future in Europe.
Among the most anticipated categories is Outstanding Greenfield Deal. This award shines a spotlight on transactions that have brought bold new projects to life. Whether through scale, financing ingenuity, or sector-first achievements, greenfield projects are the true building blocks of the transition, requiring fresh capital, vision, and execution to turn plans into operational assets.
From record-setting gigafactories and merchant battery projects to industrial-scale offshore wind facilities, the 2025 shortlist represents milestones not just for their sponsors, but for the entire market.
In September 2023, French battery start-up Verkor secured a Series C equity raise, reported as the largest ever for a French start-up, to accelerate construction of its first gigafactory in Dunkirk. The plant will have an initial production of 16GWh of high-performance, low-carbon battery cells, primarily for the customer Renault. In May 2024, Verkor reached financial close on the project through a project finance debt package arranged by a consortium of 19 lenders. Large-scale gigafactories like this are critical for producing the volumes needed to make electric vehicles competitive with internal combustion engines and to store intermittent renewable energy, supporting the broader energy transition.
The Verkor Innovation Centre in Grenoble, France, serves as the company's R&D hub and pilot manufacturing facility for battery cells. Key parties involved include Verkor as the developer, with financial support from the European Investment Bank, which provided €49 million in venture debt in 2022. Equity investors include Macquarie Capital, EQT Ventures, and EIT InnoEnergy, among others. Technical expertise and advisory support are provided internally by Verkor's multidisciplinary team, while legal, financial, and project structuring advice was supported by specialist advisers engaged by the company, such as A&O Shearman and Societe Generale.
This €1.9 billion transaction is one of the largest greenfield battery financings in Europe and a landmark for the energy transition. Raising over €1.2 billion (£1.04bn $1.42bn) in syndicated debt alongside significant equity, Verkor secured backing from 19 lenders with Bpifrance guarantees, reflecting strong confidence in a start-up navigating gigafactory risks. With a balanced approximately 2:1 debt-to-equity structure, the deal demonstrates the bankability of large-scale battery manufacturing and aligns directly with France's industrial strategy and the EU Green Deal to strengthen domestic supply chains and accelerate transport decarbonisation.
In February 2025, renewables developer Lion Storage reached financial close on the Mufasa BESS, a 364MW/4-hour grid-scale battery project in the Netherlands. The project is among the largest standalone battery energy storage financings in continental Europe and reflects increasing investor participation in large-scale storage projects.
Project Mufasa BESS involves Lion Storage as the developer, with Macquarie Group and TINC as equity sponsors. The €350 million financing structure is composed of 71% debt and 29% equity. The debt package, totalling €250 million, is provided by leading Dutch and international banks, including Santander, ING, Rabobank, ABN AMRO, Triodos Bank, and ASR. Key advisers supporting the project include EY, Santander CIB, Chatham Financial, DNV, Aon, Greenberg Traurig, A&O Shearman, and Dentons. Tesla supplies the BESS systems, while Eneco optimises operations, ensuring the project meets merchant operational requirements.
The Mufasa BESS deal marks a milestone for European energy storage, demonstrating that large-scale batteries are now considered bankable by mainstream lenders. The €350 million, 364MW/4-hour facility in Vlissingen, which repurposes a former coal plant grid connection and operates fully merchant, is one of Europe's largest grid-scale storage projects to reach financial close. Backed by a €250 million debt package from leading Dutch and international banks and equity from Macquarie Capital, TINC, and Return, the deal highlights growing investor confidence in large-scale storage as a critical enabler of renewable integration, grid stability, and decarbonisation of the European power sector. Mufasa sets a benchmark for the bankability of merchant BESS in Europe.
SeAH Wind UK, a subsidiary of South Korea's SeAH Steel Holding, is developing its first offshore wind turbine foundations manufacturing facility outside South Korea, located at the Teesworks Freeport near Redcar, UK. The factory will produce monopiles for fixed-foundation offshore wind turbines (120m long, 15.5m diameter, 3,000 tons) for European and US markets. Full production is expected by 2027. The total project financing includes a £225 million tranche closed on 11 October 2024, complementing the £365 million secured in 2023.
The SeAH Wind UK Teesside Factory Expansion is backed by SeAH Wind, a subsidiary of South Korea's SeAH Steel Holding, with project financing supported through guarantees from UK Export Finance (UKEF) and K-Sure. Lead mandated arrangers include Standard Chartered and HSBC UK, while K2 Management acts as project and construction manager, and A&O Shearman provides legal advisory.
The project represents a significant industrial investment in the UK's offshore wind supply chain and is the first manufacturing facility of its kind by SeAH Wind outside South Korea. It benefits from government-backed export credit guarantees from both the UK and South Korea, demonstrating strong cross-border support for renewable infrastructure. The project also leverages the Teesworks Freeport's tax and investment incentives, aligning with the UK's offshore wind strategy to expand domestic manufacturing capacity.
Baltica 2 Offshore Wind Farm is the largest offshore wind project currently under construction in the European Union, located off the Polish coast near Ustka and Choczew, with a headline capacity of 1.5GW. This flagship asset is jointly sponsored by Polska Grupa Energetyczna (PGE) and Denmark's Ørsted in a 50:50 partnership. Construction is scheduled for completion by the end of 2027, and the project is expected to supply clean electricity to 2.5 million citizens and generate about 3% of Poland's total power consumption annually.
The project's financing package of over €2.6 billion is structured through project finance and involves 25 leading international and domestic financial institutions. Notable lenders include the European Investment Bank (€400 million), EBRD (€200 million), Export and Investment Fund of Denmark (EIFO, €800 million guarantee), BNP Paribas, SMBC, Bank Pekao, Santander, ING, and Mizuho. Legal advisors include Clifford Chance, Norton Rose Fulbright, Rymarz Zdort Maruta, and Hengeler Mueller, with Societe Generale among the financial advisers, and Ayesa supervising engineering and construction.
Baltica 2 stands out for its scale and international collaboration, representing a transformational leap for Central and Eastern Europe's energy transition. The project will double PGE's renewable capacity and play a formative role in meeting Poland's 2030 target of 5.9GW of offshore wind, supported by national and EU-scale policy initiatives. Technical innovation is embodied by the deployment of 107 Siemens Gamesa turbines and cutting-edge marine installation techniques.
Cernay-les-Reims BESS Financing
In November 2024, TagEnergy reached financial close on the 240MW/480MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) located in Cernay-les-Reims, in France's Champagne region. The €150 million financing package was arranged by NORD/LB, ABN AMRO, and CEPAC. It supports the construction and operation of what is set to be the largest standalone battery project in France to date.
TagEnergy is the project sponsor, with Tesla providing Megapack 2XL units and a 10-year Market Service Agreement, which underpins performance guarantees and a revenue floor for lenders.
The deal establishes several firsts for the French storage sector. It is the country's largest standalone BESS, nearly double the size of previous projects, and one of the first to deploy Tesla's Megapack 2XL technology. Crucially, it is also the first BESS financing in France to introduce a hybrid debt repayment structure. The "Target Debt Balance" mechanism combines fixed and variable repayments, balancing merchant revenue volatility with lender protections. Supported by Tesla's long-term service contract, the structure provides downside protection while preserving upside from arbitrage, ancillary services, and participation in the newly opened French secondary reserve market, the automatic Frequency Restoration Reserve (aFRR).
Beyond its national significance, the financing has already influenced subsequent European BESS transactions, with its repayment model being replicated in markets including the UK and Germany. For France, it provides a replicable framework to mobilise institutional capital into a sector previously reliant on fully merchant models.
The £3.5 billion financing of the Inch Cape Offshore Wind Farm supports the construction of a 1.1GW project located 15 kilometres off the Angus coast in Scotland. The deal combines £2.7 billion in senior debt with £800 million in equity contributions from the sponsors, making it one of Scotland's single largest infrastructure financings.
The project is developed by a 50:50 joint venture between ESB and Red Rock, each contributing £400 million in equity. A syndicate of 22 lenders arranged debt financing. Linklaters and Pinsent Masons acted as legal advisers to the sponsors, while Norton Rose Fulbright advised the lenders. K2 Management provided technical due diligence, with Aon and Gallagher covering insurance. Key contractors include Vestas, Siemens Energy, COOEC, Jan De Nul and Smulders.
The transaction is the first in the UK to support deployment of the Vestas V236-15.0MW turbine, currently the largest offshore turbine in commercial use. Revenues are secured through multiple 15-year Contracts for Difference. In parallel, SSE has agreed a 15-year power purchase agreement covering 50% of the Inch Cape wind farm's output and origin certificates. The financing also yields significant industrial benefits, with over £300 million already invested across 300 UK companies.
Stockholm Exergi BECCS Project
This deal refers to Stockholm Exergi's €1.2 billion capex investment in its Bio-Energy Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) project in Sweden. The project has the capacity to remove 800,000 tonnes of CO2 per year, while simultaneously providing sustainable energy generated from biomass. A final investment decision was made by Stockholm Exergi on 27 March 2025. The sponsor has raised more than €1.8 billion through multiple funding rounds.
The project sponsor, Stockholm Exergi, received its main funding from the Swedish Energy Agency through a reverse auction, while the European Innovation Fund granted €260 million via the European Investment Bank (EIB). DC Advisory acted as one of the financial advisors, with White & Case providing legal counsel. Air Liquide and Saipem are the main contractors, while the Northern Lights project, a joint venture between Equinor, Shell, and TotalEnergies, will manage the carbon storage.
This project ranks among the largest carbon capture initiatives globally. It is also a landmark in design, combining a bioenergy power plant with carbon capture technology. The project scale is significant, supported by the involvement of numerous leading industry players.
According to the EIB, this transaction represents its first financing of a carbon capture project and contributes to both Sweden's and Europe's climate-neutral strategies. Stockholm Exergi has also signed agreements for future deliveries of negative emissions in the voluntary carbon market, including an offtake agreement with Microsoft, which makes it the largest single deal of its kind.
Click here to see the nominees shortlisted under the remaining award categories.
The shortlist demonstrates the extraordinary pace of progress in the energy transition. On awards night, one project will be crowned the winner.
Join us at the inspiratia Energy Transition Awards 2025 to celebrate these achievements and connect with the leaders shaping the next chapter of the transition.
