Norway’s sovereign wealth fund has signed an agreement to buy a 49% stake in a 1300MW pipeline of Spanish wind and solar projects from Iberdrola.
According to the terms of the agreement, the valuation of the seven solar and five onshore wind farms in the portfolio amounts to approximately €1.2bn.
Nine of the projects are currently under construction and are due online between 2023 and 2025.
Norges Bank Investment Management, the fund’s manager, will pay €600m for the stake. No external debt financing is involved.
Iberdrola will have a majority stake of 51% in the assets and will manage them, providing operations and maintenance services, as well as other corporate services.
Of the total capacity, 137MW is operational in Castilla-La Mancha and Aragón.
The rest of the projects are in development and are in Andalusia (358MW), Extremadura (343MW), Aragón (175MW), Castilla y León (102MW), Madrid (55MW), Murcia (50MW) and Castilla La Mancha (45MW).
Norges Bank Investment Management, which manages Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, has around €1.4tn of assets under management and is also one of Iberdrola´s main shareholders, retaining a stake of more than 3% for over seven years.
Building on this relationship, the investor has taken the decision to make its first direct investment in renewables assets in Spain, forming an alliance with Spanish energy producer Iberdrola.
The partners said the alliance could be extended to “additional renewable energy opportunities in further markets”.
The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2023.