Wind turbines that make up a part of the Boralex Wind Farm in Lincoln Township, Niagara Peninsula in Ontario on July 17, 2018.Peter Power/The Globe and Mail
Boralex Inc., an energy company based in Montreal, has acquired a 50-per-cent stake in five U.S. wind farms, the latest in a series of acquisitions with the goal of diversifying the company’s American holdings.
The company is buying the holdings for $340-million in cash from EDF Renewables North America, a subsidiary of a French utility company. In a statement, the company estimated the stake will produce approximately $39-million in profit in 2023.
Patrick Decostre, Boralex‘s chief executive officer, said in the statement that the acquisition would help balance the company’s hydro and solar holdings in the United States. One of the company’s main goals in its 2025 plan, published in 2021, was to make the U.S. market its main target for investment.
Camille Laventure, a spokesperson for Boralex, said that the company currently operates 23 wind farms, 9 hydroelectric facilities and one solar farm in Canada.
Of the five U.S. wind farms just bought into, two are selling energy into a wholesale power market. Two have power purchase agreements in place, guaranteeing energy sales and set prices for at least 13 years. The last has a three-year power purchase agreement. After an agreement expires, companies are free to renew deals.
The wind farms, located in Texas and New Mexico, were commissioned between 2014 and 2016 and feature turbines from Danish manufacturer Vestas Wind Systems A/S. Together, they produce a total installed capacity – the maximum amount of electricity that a generating station can produce – of 894 megawatts. Of this, Boralex will acquire 447 megawatts.
Irene Galea