French oil giant TotalEnergies unveiled a major move into Brazil’s green power sector with a deal worth almost $600m creating a multi-gigawatt joint venture with Casa dos Ventos, one of the biggest wind and solar players in the South American nation.
The Paris-based supermajor will hold a 34% stake in the new venture that will develop and operate a portfolio of projects underway by Casa dos Ventos, which will own the remaining 66% and acquires a big-hitting international partner to advance its own ambitions.
TotalEnergies will stump up $550m for its interest plus up to $30m more in earn-out payments. The French giant has an option to buy another 15% of the venture after five years.
The projects going into the JV include 700MW of operating onshore wind and another 1GW under construction, with an additional 2.8GW of onshore turbines and 1.6GW of solar “under well advanced development” and due to enter service within five years.
The new venture will have a right to acquire projects from a 6GW-strong additional portfolio of projects that Casa dos Ventos is advancing.
TotalEnergies stressed in a statement announcing the deal its heft in the global market for power purchase agreements (PPAs) and trading experience that is well suited to the significant Brazilian merchant power market.
TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanné said: "After Adani Green in India and Clearway in the US, I am delighted with this new major partnership in Brazil, with Casa dos Ventos, the leader in onshore wind energy.
“With this transaction, TotalEnergies acquires not less than a leading position in the Brazilian renewable energy market, one of the most dynamic merchant markets in the world. This market fits our strategy of taking advantage of the growth of deregulated power markets, which is crucial to the energy transition.”
The French oil & gas giant is among the most ambitious of the world’s fossil fuel players in amassing a green power base, with goals for 35GW by 2025 and 100GW by 2030, both gross.
Mario Araripe, CEO of Casa dos Ventos – which claims to have developed a quarter of the onshore wind in Brazil – said: “TotalEnergies’ global footprint will contribute to the expansion of our client portfolio and enhance our knowledge in new fields of the energy transition.”
As well as an onshore wind market that last year passed 20GW installed, Brazil is slowly but surely laying the regulatory ground for what could be a globally significant offshore sector with some of the world’s best wind resources.
