GE sheds 650 MW of renewable assets

Dive Brief:

General Electric sold 650 MW of renewable energy capacity, less than two months after announcing it would restructure and expand its renewables business in an effort to take a leadership position in the clean energy transition.
The assets were jointly owned by GE Capital's Energy Financial Services and Enel Green Power North America Renewable Energy Partners (EGPNA REP). GE sold the generation to its joint venture partner for approximately $256 million, though the company said it has an enterprise value around $900 million.
The largest assets include the 400 MW Cimarron Bend wind farm in Kansas and the 150 MW Lindahl wind farm in North Dakota. EGPNA REP will have around 1.1 GW of wind and hydro assets after the deal closes, the company said.

Dive Insight:

The deal follows a pattern of asset sales by GE. In October, the company reached a deal to sell energy investments valued at approximately $1 billion, including debt, to Apollo Global Management.

GE's plan to restructure its renewable energy business calls for moving hybrid renewables and grid solutions work — which includes solar and storage — into the same division that develops its wind power and hydro offerings. The company has faced difficulties and its stock price has lagged, but executives say global demand for renewable power generation and grid edge technologies is expected to increase.

But the U.S. assets it owned with Enel are not a part of the company's plans going forward. Along with the wind assets, the deal includes the 25 MW Cove Fort geothermal plant in Utah, the 13.4 MW Salt Wells geothermal plant in Nevada, the 59.5 MW Stillwater geothermal-solar facility in Nevada and the 2.4 MW Sheldon Springs solar facility in Vermont.

All of the assets GE sold were managed and operated by EGPNA.

According to Enel, the deal is in line with its strategic plan to increase its consolidated capacity in the United States, "extracting more value through full ownership of assets that use strategic renewable technologies."

In its most-recent announcement, GE Renewable Energy said a prototype of its largest onshore wind turbine recently began operating, producing power at a rated level of 5.3 MW in the Netherlands. The company said the turbine prototype was installed in late 2018 and began generating energy in February of this year.