NRG Acquires Offshore Wind Assets
NRG Energy, one of the country’s largest coal users, has acquired offshore wind developer Bluewater Wind, a venture jointly owned by Babcock & Brown and Arcadia Windpower, a developer headed by Bluewater founder Peter Mandelstam.
On the acquisition, NRG CEO David Crane said:
Acquiring an experienced offshore developer like Bluewater, with good projects already in the development pipeline, gives NRG first mover advantage in this potentially lucrative market.
Bluewater’s development team will join NRG’s newly formed offshore wind unit, to be headed by Peter Mandelstam.
Babcock & Brown, once Australia’s second largest investment bank and a leading cleantech investor, was crushed by its large debt load and liquidated back in September.
The companies did not disclose the financial terms.
With this acquisition NRG further bolsters its renewables portfolio, adding seven offshore wind projects located off the East Coast. Of these projects the most advanced is Bluewater’s 200-megawatt Delaware offshore wind project, which is backed by a 25-year power purchase agreement with Delmarva Power & Light Company that has been approved by the Delaware Public Service Commission and other state agencies.
So far Bluewater has not launched development on any of these projects. But that could change now that it has access to NRG’s large balance sheet.
For NRG the acquisition is part of it ongoing push to cut its CO2 emissions. Earlier this year the New Jersey utility invested $10 million in eSolar — the utility scale outfit launched by Bill Gross –for the right to use the startup’s technology to develop and operate three solar power projects that combined are set to generate 500 megawatts of electricity.
We’re planning to dial in on the conference call at 1:00 pm ET.
