French investment firm Ardian has acquired a 116 megawatt (MW) portfolio of operational solar plants in Italy from renewable energy company E2E, the companies said on Sunday.
The deal, completed through Ardian’s Clean Energy Evergreen Fund (ACEEF), includes 117 photovoltaic plants benefiting from feed-in tariffs. The acquisition marks another step in Ardian’s strategy to expand its presence in the Italian renewable energy sector.
InEnergy, ACEEF’s Italian platform, will take on asset management and development responsibilities for the portfolio.
E2E founder and general manager Gianluca Lancellotti said the sale concludes a three-year development effort and supports the company’s strategy of recycling capital for future projects.
“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,” Lancellotti said. “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.”
The portfolio will complement Ardian’s existing investments in wind and hydro assets, according to Federico Gotti Tedeschi, managing director of infrastructure at Ardian.
“Thanks to ACEEF’s evergreen structure, we can deploy a long-term value creation plan through repowering, hybridisation, and greenfield development,” Gotti Tedeschi said. “Under ACEEF control we intend to further improve the performance of the portfolio… and expand the portfolio with additional growth.”
Launched in 2022, ACEEF focuses on core renewables such as solar, wind, and hydro, while also targeting emerging energy technologies including storage, biogas, biomass, and energy efficiency solutions. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
