German utility EnBW has sold a minority stake in its 288MW Baltic 2 offshore wind farm in the German North Sea to Australian bank Macquarie Capital.
EnBW sold 49.89pc of the wind farm to Macquarie Capital for €720mn. The transaction is set to close this summer, subject to approval by anti-monopoly authorities. EnBW will retain a majority stake and will be responsible for the operation and maintenance of the complex.
The wind farm is due to start feeding power into the grid next week if weather conditions allow, with 34 out of 88 turbines installed, the utility said today. Full commissioning is scheduled for the spring. The wind farm is expected to feed around 1.2 TWh/yr into the grid, giving it a load factor of around 48pc.
EnBW has also sold minority stakes in its 48.3MW Baltic 1 offshore wind farm, which it started to bring on line in 2011. A consortium of 19 municipal utilities, or stadtwerke, mostly from the southern German state of Baden-Wurttemberg, holds 49.9pc in Baltic 1.
EnBW has opted to form joint ventures "to generate additional financial scope for pushing forward the development of other growth projects", it said.
The utility is also developing the 450MW Hohe See wind farm and recently bought the 316MW Albatros offshore project from Austrian construction group Strabag.
EnBW in December last year reached a court settlement over German grid regulator Bnetza's decision to drop the planned 900MW Borwin 4 grid connection in the German North Sea, which would have reduced the available connection capacity for Hohe See and Albatros and prevented the development of one of the projects.
sk/jc
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