Scottish & Southern Energy Plc (SSE), the U.K.'s second-biggest power producer, sold three wind farms to Infinis Plc, a renewable energy company owned by Guy Hands, for 174 million pounds ($284 million).
Infinis bought the 30-megawatt Dalswinton park and the 36.8-megawatt Minsca plant in Scotland for cash, according to a statement today from SSE. Both are producing power that's sold to a utility, Infinis said in a separate statement.
Infinis, which is owned by Hands's private equity firm Terra Firma Capital Partners Ltd., also acquired the 30-megawatt Slieve Divena farm in Northern Ireland and will sell the project's electricity to SSE under a 14-year power purchase agreement, according to the statement from Infinis. The Northampton-based company declined to provide further terms.
The acquisition doubles Infinis' wind energy capacity to 174 megawatts as it seeks to reach 230 megawatts of installed power by 2013. The company, which had a total of 439 megawatts of capacity in January, generated about 10 percent of the U.K.'s renewable power in the year to March 31, 2010.
"While we are planning long-term growth of our wind energy portfolio throughout the U.K. and Ireland, we have always said that we will use disposals and acquisitions to optimize our wind farm portfolio, and this sale is consistent with that,"Gregor Alexander, finance director of SSE, said in its statement.
