Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners, a global investment manager specializing in lower carbon and renewable energy infrastructure, announced that it has acquired a 223-MW operational wind power portfolio from subsidiaries of NextEra Energy Resources. The well-diversified wind portfolio has more than 10 years of operating history and contracted power sales to multiple investment-grade utilities. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Quinbrook’s newly acquired portfolio consists of six operating wind farms, varying in size from 9 to 66 MW. The projects are located in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and California, and are focused on markets which have only modest volumes of installed wind capacity.
The acquisition was made by GlidePath Power Solutions, a Quinbrook portfolio company acquired by the Quinbrook Low Carbon Power Fund in 2017. GlidePath is a developer of distributed power solutions across the U.S. spanning wind, solar, distributed gas and battery storage. Quinbrook’s latest wind acquisition adds contracted, cash-yielding assets to GlidePath’s existing project development pipeline, which exceeds 600 MW of planned distributed power and battery storage projects in the U.S.
The acquired portfolio consists of six operating wind farms, varying in size from 9 to 66 MW. The projects are located in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and California, and are focused on markets which have only modest volumes of installed wind capacity. Each asset has been owned and operated by subsidiaries of NextEra Energy Resources for well over 10 years, and has an established operating history. A NextEra affiliate will continue to operate the facilities after closing.
“This latest acquisition lays the foundation for our US distributed power platform to be spearheaded by the GlidePath team,” said David Scaysbrook, Managing Partner of Quinbrook. “The wind assets in the NextEra portfolio are distributed scale and offer, not only immediate cash returns, but the potential for future upside benefits from repowering existing wind sites with the latest wind turbine technology and extending their operating lives for another 25 years or more.”
“We are excited to be acquiring a set of high quality, operational wind assets in attractive power markets across the United States,” said Jeff Hunter, Senior Managing Director of Quinbrook. “GlidePath is an ideal home for these assets, given the Quinbrook and GlidePath teams’ combined experience in distributed scale power solutions and development of battery storage infrastructure. Importantly, this portfolio is unencumbered in all key respects and has no current debt, no tax equity liabilities and offers the potential for material value upside from smart retooling.”
The acquisitions expand Quinbrook’s ability to meet growing renewable energy demand in strategic energy markets. State policies in the California, Mid-Atlantic, and Northeast markets are expected to drive demand for more than 30 GW of new renewable energy capacity between now and 2030.
The acquisition follows Quinbrook’s recent investment in an 84-MW distributed gas-fired power portfolio in the United Kingdom located across four sites in England and Wales, as well as its investment earlier this year in the Scout Clean Energy utility-scale wind power platform. Each of Quinbrook’s recent investments are designed to capitalize on the growing demand for new lower carbon and renewable power capacity in key markets around the world.
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