RWE and KKR reach financial close on 2.8 GW Vanguard offshore wind pair

RWE and KKR have reached financial close on Vanguard West and Vanguard East, two 1.4 GW offshore wind farms planned 50 to 80 kilometres off the Norfolk coast, and KKR has completed its purchase of a 50% stake in each, RWE said on November 11, 2026. The projects carry a total investment of around £12 billion, including their transmission infrastructure. The debt is a non-recourse project financing of £11.1 billion in cash facilities plus £1.7 billion in ancillary facilities from 35 international banks, which RWE calls the largest ever project financing in UK offshore wind.

Offshore construction is set to begin in early 2027, with the first foundation for Vanguard West planned for the first half of that year and Vanguard East to follow. RWE expects full commissioning of both projects in 2030, and says onshore cable works and substation construction are well advanced. Both projects hold 20-year Contracts for Difference (CfDs) won in the UK's Allocation Round 7 (AR7) in January.

Later, and a little smaller

The close came after the summer target. When RWE announced the KKR partnership on January 14, 2026, it targeted closing of the transaction and the project financing, as well as the final investment decision, for summer 2026, with commissioning in 2029 for Vanguard West and 2030 for Vanguard East. As late as March 10, RWE Offshore Wind chief executive Sven Utermöhlen said the company was "on track to make a final investment decision for both projects this summer," in the release announcing Vanguard East's turbine order. The November release gives one date for both: full commissioning in 2030.

The capacity changed too. In January, RWE said the two projects had been awarded contracts totalling 3.1 GW; the November release counts around 2.8 GW. The government's AR7 results explain the arithmetic, if not the plan. They list each Vanguard project as three separate CfD units, of 1,380 MW, 90 MW and 75 MW, all at the same strike price. The two 1,380 MW units come to 2,760 MW, the 2.8 GW now being financed. The 90 MW and 75 MW units on the two projects add another 330 MW between them, by our arithmetic, and the November release does not mention them.

The turbine orders match the smaller number. RWE has contracted Vestas for 92 of its V236 turbines, rated at 15 MW each, for Vanguard West and another 92 for Vanguard East, or 1,380 MW per project.

The money

The UK's National Wealth Fund is in the syndicate with two £500 million commitments, one per project, alongside credit cover from Germany's Euler Hermes and Denmark's EIFO. RWE says it is the first participation in a UK offshore wind project financing for both the National Wealth Fund and Euler Hermes. The fund describes its role as widening the pool of capital and helping "to meet unprecedented liquidity requirements after the success of AR7."

Counted the National Wealth Fund's way, the financing is bigger than the project. The fund's release calls it a £12.8 billion financing package, the cash and ancillary facilities added together, and elsewhere rounds it to "approximately £13 billion" of project-backed financing, against the around £12 billion RWE gives as the projects' total investment. RWE's own breakdown keeps the £11.1 billion of cash facilities apart from the £1.7 billion of ancillary facilities.

For RWE, the joint venture also moves the projects off its balance sheet. In its results for the first three quarters, published the same day, RWE reported net debt of €17.0 billion at September 30 and said it expects about €12 billion at year-end, a decline "mainly attributable to the deconsolidation of the Vanguard West and Vanguard East offshore wind projects following the establishment of the joint venture with KKR." It now counts the pair as 1.4 GW of its own capacity under construction, its pro-rata half.

RWE is building its other AR7 winners with partners too. Its January release put Masdar at 49% of Dogger Bank South and Stadtwerke München and Siemens at 30% and 10% of Awel y Môr. In October, RWE sold its third of Five Estuaries to EDF and said it planned to reinvest the proceeds in its existing portfolio of consented offshore projects.

UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham, quoted in RWE's release, said the investment is "great news for billpayers because every turbine we put up is power under British control, not at the mercy of events on the other side of the world." The price behind that promise is the CfD: 20 years at £91.20 per megawatt-hour in 2024 prices, indexed to inflation, with the cost of such contracts recovered through per-unit levies on electricity supply.