Nordic wind farm players agree merger

Norway’s Havgul Clean Energy and Sweden’s Triventus Wind Power are merging to form Havgul Nordic.

 

The new entity will be the first pan-Nordic wind farm developer and have 15 projects totalling 1554 MW under development in Finland, Norway and Sweden.

The companies said Havgul Nordic will “provide a single platform for investors to access a broad range of wind projects across three markets, combining onshore and offshore”.

They added that the move will help cut overall development costs and allow knowledge sharing and “greater economies of scale during critical development and EPC phases”.

Havgul Nordic’s portfolio is split as seven projects in Sweden (504MW), five in Norway (865MW) and three in Finland (185MW). The company will maintain offices in Oslo, Norway; and Falkenberg, Sweden.

Schemes range from small unpermitted sites to large-scale and fully permitted sites such as the 350MW Havsul 1 offshore and the 200MW Tonstad wind farm, as well as three sites in Finland’s feed-in tariff market.

“We are aiming to establish one of the lowest cost and highest return wind developers in the Nordic region,” said Havgul Nordic chief executive Harald Dirdal.

“The Norwegian and Swedish governments have recently increased their renewable energy targets and we expect to be well positioned to exploit this highly positive regulatory driver in the years ahead.

“Despite weak wholesale electricity pricing, the Nordic region offers attractive regulatory and commercial characteristics.”

UK-based SgurrEnergy provided advisory services to facilitate the merger. Leading shareholders of Havgul Nordic include the Sustainable Technologies Fund and Investinor AS, which includes the Norwegian government, the Swedish National Pension Funds, Kåpan Pension Fund and the Heinz Family as prominent investors.