ENGIE and EDP have been building an increasingly close partnership over the last six years. Energias de Portugal (EDP) is major world company operating in the energy sector – in renewables in particular, which account for two-thirds of its EBITDA Its subsidiary EDP renewables (EDPr) is the world's fourth largest producer of wind power. EDPr has access to cutting-edge operational capacity on the market and has enjoyed exceptional growth over the last few years. It currently operates on 14 international markets (Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, France, Greece, Italy, Mexico, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, United Kingdom and the US).
On January 23rd, ENGIE signed an agreement to create a new joint venture with EDPr which will strengthen this partnership for the coming years.
Projects in the pipeline and a new joint venture for offshore wind power
Through this joint venture, our objective is to build farms and secure projects in the pipeline capable of producing a total of 5 to 7 GW of offshore wind power. This is equivalent to ENGIE’s total wind power capacity at the end of 2018. The alliance will mean that problems posed by this new technology can be solved faster and competitively-sized projects can be developed. Our aim is to create the world leader in the sector. The joint venture will primarily target European and US markets, as well as parts of Asia, where most of the growth will be concentrated. Ultimately, the joint venture wants to be financially self-sufficient.
This ambitious alliance is in line with the fruitful cooperation that EDPR has enjoyed with the Dieppe Le Tréport and Yeu Noirmoutier stationary wind farms in France and the Moray East and Moray West ones in the UK. In 2019, we joined the Windfloat consortium and commissioned the first floating wind turbine in continental Europe in Portugal.
Six hydroelectric power plants sold to ENGIE in Portugal
In December, ENGIE announced the purchase of a number of hydroelectric power plants owned by EDP. We will own six facilities, including three run-of-the-river power stations and three pumped storage plants with installed capacity of 1.7 GW. This represents €2.2 billion of investment for the Group, with an average concession term of 45 years.