Thailand’s GPSC Acquires Taiwan Offshore Wind Stake For US$500 Million
CIP funds to remain majority owners of 595MW project due to start commercial operations in 2024.
Bangkok-listed Global Power Synergy Public Company Limited (GPSC) has acquired a 25% stake in the 595MW Changfang and Xidao (CFXD) offshore wind farms in Taiwan. The Thai company, a subsidiary of state-owned oil and gas group PTT, is paying US$500 million for the shares.
The seller is Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP), on behalf of the funds Copenhagen Infrastructure II K/S (CI-II) and Copenhagen Infrastructure III K/S (CI-III). FIH Partners acted as exclusive financial adviser and White & Case was legal adviser to CIP on the transaction.
GPSC is doing the deal through a wholly owned subsidiary, Global Renewable Synergy Company Limited (GRSC).
The two CIP funds, CI-II and CI-III, will continue as joint majority owners of the project, and lead the construction phase towards commercial operations in 2024.
The two companies say the new partnership on CFXD contributes to Taiwan’s New Southbound Policy, its regional strategy for Asia, by enhancing cooperation on renewable energy between Taiwan and Thailand.
Located 13-15 kilometres off the coast of Changhua County in Taiwan, the CFXD project reached financial close in February 2020, through a combination of equity and senior loans from a consortium of 25 international and Taiwanese banks and financial institutions as well as six export credit agencies.
The public-private partnership regime under which the contract was awarded is steadily increasing Taiwanese content. Local suppliers and partners on CFXD include Century Iron & Steel Industrial Company Limited, TECO, Hung Hua Construction and CTCI. The project has a 20-year power purchase agreement with state-owned Taiwan Power Company.
CIP is a fund management company focused on energy infrastructure including offshore wind, onshore wind, solar PV, biomass and energy-from-waste, transmission, distribution and storage. It manages eight funds and has approximately €16 billion (US$18.8 billion) under management.
Today, CIP’s funds have approximately 100 international institutional investors from the Nordics, continental Europe, the United Kingdom, Israel, Asia, Australia, and North America, plus multilateral organizations such as the European Investment Bank.
GPSC is expanding internationally, and recently acquired a 41.6% share in Indian solar power developer Avaada Energy Private Limited for 14.82 billion baht (US$449 million).
The Indian government has a target of 450GW of installed renewable power generation capacity by 2030. PTT itself has a target of 8GW by 2030.
Avaada plans to build a solar power generation capacity of 3,744MW, with 1,392MW coming from facilities in operation and the remaining 2,352MW to be generated by power plants currently under construction. The plants are scheduled to begin operations between 2021 and 2022.
Source: theasset
