Octopus, GLIL buying 12.5% in UK's Hornsea One complex

UK energy investor Octopus Energy Group and alternative investment fund GLIL Infrastructure have agreed to jointly acquire a 12.5% stake in 1.2-GW Hornsea One wind farm in UK waters in a deal worth GBP 400 million (USD 480.5m/EUR 469.4m).

Octopus Energy said on Wednesday that its generation business has invested GBP 200 million in the offshore wind farm on behalf of British pension scheme Nest through a joint venture with GLIL. The latter, which is investing in infrastructure on behalf of pension funds, is injecting the same amount as well.

The combined 12.5% stake is being sold by Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), which owns Hornsea One through a 50/50 joint venture (JV) with Denmark’s Ørsted A/S (CPH:ORSTED). The agreement with GIP follows an earlier arrangement of the infrastructure investment fund to offload a 10.2% portion of its stake in Hornsea One to The Renewables Infrastructure Group (LON:TRIG), an investment firm managed by InfraRed Capital Partners. Additionally, Greencoat UK Wind Plc (LON:UKW) in May struck a deal to buy a net 12.5% stake in the offshore wind park from GIP.

The Hornsea One complex, currently the largest wind farm in the world, is located 120 km (75 miles) off the coast of Yorkshire, England. It is powered by 174 Siemens Gamesa turbines that became fully operational in December 2019. The plant is operated by Ørsted and has in place an inflation-linked Contract-for-Difference (CfD) that expires in 13 years.

At present, Hornsea One is the world’s largest operational offshore wind farm.

(GBP 1.0 = USD 1.201/EUR 1.174)

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