Energy Infrastructure Partners – formerly Credit Suisse Energy Infrastructure Partners – will take a €530m ($640m) 49% stake in German developer BayWa r.e, in the Swiss investor's latest foray into renewable-focused companies and projects.

With a 51% stake, trading group BayWa will remain BayWa r.e.’s majority shareholder after “the largest transaction in BayWa company history,” BayWa’s chief executive Klaus Josef Lutz said.

“Together with our green bond successfully placed in 2019, we have thus acquired €1.03bn in less than two years on the capital market for the renewable energies business unit.”

Lutz said together with EIP, his company plans to transform BayWa r.e. into an independent power producer (IPP) with a total production capacity of up to 3GW in the medium term.

The developer currently has a project pipeline of over 13GW in Europe, the US and the Asia-Pacific region.

The execution of the transaction via a capital increase is still subject to regulatory approvals.

Energy Infrastructure Partners (EIP) specialises in long-term investments in the energy sector, and is snapping up ever larger stakes in renewable energy companies or projects.

First power from Nysäter

A fund advised by EIP also owns 80% of the RWE-developed 474MW Nysäter onshore wind project that is currently being built with 114 Nordex wind turbines in Sweden.

RWE (which still owns 20% in Nysäter and will operate the wind farm once completed) yesterday said a first of 21 already grid-connected turbines in the delayed project in Viksjö, close to Härnösand has finally started feeding into the Swedish grid.

Energy Infrastructure Partners also leads an investor consortium (Nordic Wind Power) holding 40% in the 1.06GW Forsen wind complex in Norway, which is one of Europe's largest wind projects on land.