Ørsted is divesting an equity ownership stake in four US onshore wind farms, totalling 957MW, to infrastructure investment firm Stonepeak.
The $300 million transaction is the second major divestment of multiple assets in the US by Ørsted under its ‘farm-down’ programme, following a similar deal with Energy Capital Partners in 2022.
The developer said it had previously raised around $700 million in tax equity proceeds for the 975MW portfolio, bringing the total proceeds raised to abound $1 billion.
The four operational wind farms have power purchase agreements in place for all or parts of their production capacity. They are spread across three states: The Ford Ridge Wind project in Illinois, the Helena Wind and Western Trail Wind projects in Texas, and the Sunflower Wind project in Kansas.
Headquartered in New York, Stonepeak – which also recently agreed a $2.6 billion deal with Dominion Energy for 50% of the 2.6GW-plus Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind in the US – will receive 80% of the cash distributions associated with the Ørsted projects, while the Danish developer will continue to operate the assets.
This is Ørsted’s first partnership with Stonepeak. While structured differently, the transaction broadly corresponds to Ørsted’s historical farm-down approach, in which ownership shares of existing operating assets are divested in order to redeploy capital for future value-creating projects. The partnership structure allows the firm to maximise capital redeployment while also retaining operational decision-making and long-term optionality around the portfolio.
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