Greencoat Renewables has acquired a further 25% stake in the 108MW Cloosh Valley wind farm in Ireland from co-owner SSE.
The transaction takes the Irish asset fund manager’s holding to 75%. The stake, worth €34.5m, is equal to 27MW.
SSE, which will continue to hold a 25% share, will operate the wind farm and its retail arm in Ireland, SSE Airtricity, will have the offtake of the green energy generated at the site.
Cloosh Valley is part of the 174MW Galway wind park in Connemara, County Galway, which entered operation in September 2017. It comprises 36 Siemens Gamesa 3MW turbines and is contracted under Ireland’s Refit 2 support regime until 2032.
SSE is using stake sell-downs of its onshore wind assets to finance development and construction of more onshore and offshore wind farms, in line with its strategy to create value from the development and operation, as well as ownership, of assets.
The 174MW Galway wind park entered commercial operation in September 2017 and comprises 58 turbines in total, making it Ireland’s largest wind farm.
Galway was developed in two phases. The first phase, comprising 66MW, is fully-owned by SSE while the second phase, the 108MW Cloosh Valley site, is co-owned by SSE and Greencoat Renewables.
With the completion of the sale, SSE will own 93MW of the installed capacity at Galway, representing a 53% ownership share of the total site.
Greencoat Capital investment manager Paul O’Donnell said: “We are very pleased to partner with SSE and to strengthen our relationship as co-owners of this asset at Ireland’s largest wind farm.
“We continue to see a strong pipeline of acquisition opportunities, for which our track record in execution and operations makes us an attractive partner for utilities looking to recycle capital.”