NTE, TrønderEnergi and Nordavind DC Sites AS have each acquired a 1/3 of the subsea cable company. The new owners have regional grid operations, hydroelectric and wind power production, as well as fibre-optic operations in the region. Together, they have combined company revenues of close to €400 million per year.
Under the terms of the agreement, the new shareholders will fund Celtic Norse AS up until an investment decision is reached and the project is completed.
“The Celtic Norse system will provide Central/Eastern Norway with faster, lower latency routes to key DC markets in Europe and US and make available attractive locations in Norway for establishing hyperscale data centres,” said Erling Aronsveen (pictured), CEO, Celtic Norse. “With existing resources of renewable energy, land and a business friendly environment, the fibre-optic connection to US and Ireland is the last building block towards a complete value proposition to our customers.”
Celtic Norse was floated as a limited company in April earlier this year and the final stages of financing is to be completed by Q4 2019. The cable has a RFS date of 2021 and will drastically shorten the response times for data communications between Norway and the US. The Celtic Norse cable will enable direct connection to the trans-Atlantic AEC-1 cable between Killala Bay, County Mayo in the Republic of Ireland and Shirley, New York in the US.
In addition, the cable will benefit from the other UK and US connectivity available in Ireland. Landing at Oysanden, in Melhus municipality in Norway, just south of the city of Trondheim it will also feature onwards terrestrial connections going south to Oslo-and mainland Europe, as well as spur cables linking Northern Norway to Celtic Norse, which is already in place.
“Securing the development of the Celtic Norse is seen as a strategic investment for NTE and Tronderenergi, and will potential greatly enhance our existing assets in renewable energy and fibre”, added Svein Olav Munkeby, non-executive director, Celtic Norse.
