Exus acquires US wind farm

Following the recent acquisition of Rattlesnake – a 160 MW wind farm in Texas, US, formerly owned by Goldwind – Exus now operates a North American renewables portfolio exceeding 1.8 GW on behalf of its investors. This marks a vast expansion in Exus’ asset base since its first US acquisition – a 120 MW portfolio of solar farms – in September 2019.

This rapid growth is in line with significant activity and changing market dynamics in the US renewable energy sector in 2020. As the market has expanded, fuelled by supportive state policies and impetus from the remaining tax credits, a growing variety of investors has entered the sector. Where local utilities and developers previously dominated, institutional and private investors have identified US renewables as an asset class capable of delivering stable returns amid wider market volatility.

However, with increased maturity and commoditisation, margins are reduced. Simultaneously, US portfolios are growing in scale and technological diversity, while asset owners must also account for the increasing financial risks of operating in a range of complex merchant electricity markets.

In this context, demand from investors is growing for the support of asset management teams that can not only offer technical expertise – using data-driven approaches to harness the full potential of wind and solar assets – but critically, also provide active commercial management of those assets to ensure ongoing profitability.

Exus’ North American portfolio now encompasses 46 individual assets in seven states and provinces with approximately 1250 MW of solar and 550 MW of wind under management for seven major institutional investors.

For the majority of assets, Exus has guided its investors throughout sourcing and acquisition, acting as a buy-side advisor to its clients. Exus then takes on the operational management of the projects, with an approach to technical optimisation that draws on a unique combination of on-the-ground experience and digital anomaly detection and predictive maintenance tools such as its proprietary ‘BlueSky’ asset management platform.

To help its investors tackle the ongoing risks inherent in energy sales, Exus’ commercial management team brings significant expertise in originating Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs), structuring of financial hedges and Renewable Energy Credit (REC) trading – alongside the fundamentals of energy scheduling, commodity risk management and generation dispatch.

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Read the article online at: https://www.energyglobal.com/wind/21012021/exus-acquires-us-wind-farm/