Japan’s Inpex in $654m green power deal
afr.comJapan’s Inpex Corporation has plunged into renewable energy development in Australia with an investment of more than $650 million, significantly reducing its concentration in the under-pressure gas sector.
The Tokyo-based firm has signed a deal to buy a 50 per cent stake in Italian-owned Enel Green Power Australia, in a move that will provide the wind and solar power developer with a fresh injection of capital.
Enel’s Bungala Solar Farm, near Port Augusta in South Australia.
The deal, the result of a sale process that Enel set in motion in May last year, values the half-stake at about €400 million ($653.8 million), including about €140 million in debt.
It marks the entry of the Japanese company – better known in Australia as the operator of the $US45 billion ($66.1 billion) Ichthys LNG project in Darwin – into Australia’s fast-growing wind and solar power sector.
Existing management at Enel Green Power in Australia, led by chief executive Werther Esposito, will remain in place, but with a new board including equal representation from both owners.
Enel’s Australian renewables business has three operating plants involving 310 megawatts of solar power capacity, mostly focused at the Bungala solar farms near Port Augusta in South Australia, and with a smaller solar project in Victoria.
However, it has several more projects in development, including the Flat Rocks wind farm in Western Australia’s south, where the first turbines have already been delivered to site. A 93MW solar farm is also under development in Victoria, and a 96MW hybrid solar and battery project is in the late stage of development at Quorn Park in NSW.
Other wind, solar, storage and hybrid projects are in earlier stages of development as it seeks to capture
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