KKR and RWE lock in £12 billion for two UK wind farms, backed by a record £11.1 billion loan

German utility RWE and US investment firm KKR said Wednesday they have completed their 50:50 joint venture for the Vanguard West and Vanguard East offshore wind farms in the UK North Sea and closed the project financing. The total investment, including the transmission link, is about £12 billion (roughly $16 billion), according to OilPrice.com and Offshore Wind. The Wall Street Journal and Reuters carried the same news.

The number behind the number

The headline is £12 billion, but the figure that matters to lenders is the debt. Offshore Wind reports a package of £11.1 billion in cash facilities plus £1.7 billion in ancillary facilities (guarantees and similar lines), provided by 35 banks. RWE calls it the largest project financing secured for UK offshore wind. It includes £1 billion from the UK National Wealth Fund, plus credit cover from Germany's Euler Hermes and Denmark's export agency EIFO. Equity from RWE and KKR sits alongside it, and the debt is non-recourse, meaning lenders look to the wind farms' revenue rather than the parents' balance sheets.

Revenue is largely fixed. Both farms won 20-year contracts for difference in the UK's seventh auction round in January 2026 at £91.20 per megawatt-hour in 2024 prices, per Offshore Wind. That guaranteed price is what lets banks lend at this scale: a price they can model for two decades.

What gets built

• Two farms of about 1.4 GW each, 50 to 80 kilometres off Norfolk, 2.8 GW combined, enough for around three million UK homes according to RWE.
• RWE has placed firm orders with Vestas for 92 V236-15 MW turbines per project. Haizea Wind Group has begun making monopile foundations for Vanguard West.
• Offshore construction starts in early 2027, first foundation installation at Vanguard West in the first half of 2027, full commissioning in 2030.
• The UK government says the projects will support more than 2,400 jobs in construction and operation, as quoted by OilPrice.

KKR agreed to take its 50% stake in each project in December 2025. The deal was originally targeted to complete in summer 2026, so it closed a few months behind that goal.

Why it matters beyond Britain

Offshore wind has been a hard sector for investors, with cost overruns and cancelled projects across Europe and the US. Money at this scale committed in the middle of a rate-hike debate shows long-dated, contract-backed infrastructure can still raise debt. OilPrice notes that UK operating offshore capacity is above 16 GW against a goal of more than 43 GW by 2030, so the two farms cover a modest slice of that gap. Offshore wind produced a record 17.9% of UK power in 2025.

For readers, the practical read is for the supply chain and the cost of capital, not for UK power bills tomorrow: nothing generates before 2030, and the £91.20 strike price is the number to watch against future market prices.

Sources: OilPrice.com; Offshore Wind; RWE statement as quoted by both; WSJ and Reuters reports of the deal; Yahoo Finance. Currency conversions as reported by the cited outlets. Debt totals from other outlets differ; we use Offshore Wind's breakdown. This is market information, not investment advice.