Spain's Gamesa has agreed to sell interests in four wind power projects in the US to Canada's Algonquin Power & Utilities for about $900 million, the company said Friday.
The price of Gamesa shares surged by more than 15% after the announcement.
Gamesa, one of the world's largest wind turbine manufacturers, said it will develop and build the wind projects, which will have combined capacity of 480 MW. The wind farms, located in Illinois, Iowa, Pennsylvania and Texas, will be equipped with 240 of Gamesa's 2-MW turbines.
Algonquin Power, the renewable power generation subsidiary of Algonquin Power & Utilities, reached the deal with Gamesa at a price of $888 million, the parent company said Friday. The projects are to be acquired through American Wind Portfolio Holdings, a newly formed partnership with Algonquin Power holding a 51% controlling interest and Gamesa at 49%, according to Algonquin Power & Utilities.
The facilities are the 200-MW Minonk project in Illinois, the 150-MW Senate project in Texas, the 80-MW Pocahontas Prairie project in Iowa and the 50-MW Sandy Ridge project in Pennsylvania. The Sandy Ridge and Pocahontas Prairie facilities began operations last month, while the other two projects are being built, with operating dates planned in the fourth quarter, Algonquin Power & Utilities said.
A subsidiary of JP Morgan has commited to a fixed-price power purchase agreement from the Minonk and Sandy Ridge facilities for terms of 10 years and 15 years, respectively, for a portion of the facilities' output. The price and volumes were not provided, although Algonquin Power & Utilities said that about 73% of the energy revenues from the facilities would be earned under the contracts, with the output in excess of the contracts to be sold in energy markets where the facilities are located.
In addition to the acquisition, Gamesa and Algonquin Power have signed a joint development agreement to pursue additional wind project development in the US and Canada, the companies said. The deal will give Algonquin Power a chance to work with Gamesa on its project development in the two countries, and provide Gamesa an opportunity to expand its contracted facilities through Algonquin Power.
Gamesa said it had a worldwide wind farm pipeline of 23.89 GW at the end of 2011, including 3.5 GW in various stages of development and completion in the US.
It currently has some 30 factories in Europe, the US, Brazil, China and India. The firm employs some 8,000 people around the world.
Algonquin Power & Utilities has more than $1.2 billion in assets across North America.
