After a strong first quarter, venture-capital (VC) funding for wind farms fell to approximately $17 million in the second quarter of this year – encompassing just three deals, according to analysis from Mercom Capital Group, a communications and consulting firm.
In the first quarter of this year, more than $240 million went into 12 wind farm deals, Mercom notes. The top VC deals for the second quarter included $9.8 million raised by ReGen Powertech and $7.5 million raised by Southwest Windpower, both wind turbine manufacturers.
Large-scale project funding in the second quarter totaled $5.4 billion in 23 deals. Of that, $4 billion went to onshore projects and $1.4 billion went to offshore projects.
Mercom notes that the top large-scale project funding deal was the $741 million raised by Colruyt for its 216 MW Northwind offshore wind farm, followed by $662 million raised by Lincs Wind Farm Ltd. for its 270 MW offshore wind farm, and $650 million raised by Terra-Gen Power for the developer's 300 MW Alta Wind VII & IX wind projects.
Other top project funding deals included $444 million raised by Invenergy for its 200 MW California Ridge wind energy project, and $379 million raised by Iberdrola and Neoenergia for 10 wind farms totaling 288 MW, Mercom notes.
Large-scale project funding investors with multiple deals during the second quarter included BNDES, KfW IPEX-Bank, Union Bank, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, BayernLB, EBRD, Lloyds, Rabobank and Santander.
When it comes to corporate mergers and acquisitions (M&A), second-quarter activity totaled $93 million – including five transactions – compared to $872 million in 11 transactions in the first quarter.
Mercom says the second-quarter M&A transactions included a $60 million acquisition of Suzlon (Suzlon Energy Tianjin Ltd.), a wind turbine manufacturer, by China Power New Energy Development Co. and the $33 million acquisition of Tellhow Wind Power, a wind blade manufacturer, by Simomatech.
There were 17 project M&As announced in the second quarter, amounting to $705 million in six disclosed transactions.
Top project M&A transactions included the $301 million acquisition of Agaoglu Group's two wind farms (126 MW) by Dogan Sirketler Grubu Holding, and the $174 million acquisition of AGL Energy's Hallett 5 wind farm (52.5 MW) by Eurus Energy.
Other top transactions included the $85.5 million acquisition of a 49% stake in each of four AES Corp. wind farms (120 MW) by Sembcorp, the $62 million acquisition of the Dobrich wind farm (40 MW) by LUKERG Bulgaria, and the $42 million acquisition of AES Southern Europe Holdings' St. Patrick wind farm and three InnoVent projects by Boralex (90.5 MW).Â
