British private equity Portuguese company EDP Renewables (EDPR) has agreed to sell the 137MW Babilonia wind farm to a unit of British private equity fund Actis for R$650m ($177m) as part of the company’s drive to raise money for new investments.

Taking the total debt into account, the transaction is valued at R$1.2bn.

“Including this sale, EDPR has already reached around 25% of the €4bn Euro asset rotation for 2019-22,” the company said in a statement, referring to the strategic plan it announced earlier this year. In March, EDP unveiled expansion plans to add up to 8GW of renewables by 2022, to be funded partly by divestments, among them up to 5.5GW of onshore wind.

The Actis deal has to approved by local authorities and should be concluded by the fourth quarter of 2019, the company said.

The British firm will now become the country’s number-one wind-power operator. The 137MW will add to the fund’s 1.3GW in operation through two local renewable energy companies, Atlantic and Echoenergia.

The Babilonia project, in the Northeast state of Bahia, won a 20-year power-purchase agreement (PPA) at the regulated market tender in 2015. It started operations at the end of 2018.

The announcement comes a few days after it signed a 20-year corporate PPA with an unnamed buyer for the construction of a 126MW wind farm.

EDPR, which is partly owned by Chinese developer China Three Gorges, has 467MW of wind in operation in Brazil, roughly 3% of Brazil’s total 15GW onshore capacity.

Wind

EDPR sells 137MW Brazilian wind farm to Actis for $177m