Ardian has acquired a portfolio of 117 operational solar plants, with a total capacity of 116MW, located across several Italian regions, for an undisclosed sum.
The investment firm added that the portfoliio has been purchased for its Clean Energy Evergreen Fund (ACEEF) from E2E.
The solar photovoltaic assets have more than 10 years of “strong operating track record”, benefiting from feed-in tariffs, and many have been recently repowered and revamped to improve operational efficiency, Ardian said.
Gianluca Lancellotti, founder and general manager, E2E, said: “This transaction marks the successful completion of a journey that began three years ago with the acquisition of the initial assets in this portfolio and continued through the implementation of our value creation strategy, including the revamping and repowering of the plants.
“In the last 12 months, we worked closely with Ardian to further enhance the operational efficiency of the portfolio, achieving an average annual revenue exceeding €630,000 per MW for the incentivised plants. This sale will enable us to consolidate new portfolios and continue advancing our mission.”
Federico Gotti Tedeschi, managing director, infrastructure at Ardian, said: “This acquisition is consistent with ACEEF strategy to consolidate renewable assets in the Italian market. The E2E asset will complement our existing wind and hydro portfolio adding further geographic and technological diversification.
“Thanks to ACEEF’s evergreen structure we can deploy a long-term value creation plan, through repowering, hybridisation and greenfield development.”
Launched in early 2022, ACEEF is Ardian’s first open-ended clean energy fund, and raised €1bn at the closing in July 2023.
Ardian said that ACEEF will continue to focus on core renewable assets including solar, wind and hydro, as well as emerging technologies across biogas, biomass, storage and energy efficiency.
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