The Lithuanian Competition Council has approved the acquisition of Nelja Energia, an operator of wind farms in Estonia and Lithuania, by Enefit Green, the renewable energy subsidiary of Estonian state-owned energy group Eesti Energia. Latvia’s Competition Council has already given the takeover the nod, which leaves Estonia’s own Competition Council as the last remaining obstacle in the way of the deal going through. In June it asked for more time to consider the request.
Eesti Energia/Enefit Green first agreed to buy Nelja Energia from the Norwegian outfit Vardar on May 29, for a price of 289 million euros. In addition, Enefit Green will take over 204 million euros of debt.
“The strategic goal of Eesti Energia is to increase the share of electricity produced from renewable and alternative sources to 40 per cent of our total production portfolio by the year 2022,” said Eesti Energia chairman Hando Sutter. “Besides the construction of new production units, one more way to achieve the goal is to acquire suitable companies. When we saw that Vardar was selling Nelja Energia, we were interested, because we knew that this would help us implement our strategy.”
Aavo Kärmas, CEO of Enefit Green, said that acquiring Nelja Energia makes Enefit Green the fastest growing renewable energy producer in the Baltic Sea region. “Renewable energy has a great future, and we are willing to contribute to this,” said Mr Kärmas. “We see ourselves in the future acting as a producer of renewable energy in Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, and also in Poland – in all these countries Eesti Energia also operates as a power seller.”
Nelja Energia is a producer of renewable energy in the Baltic States owning wind farms located in Estonia and Lithuania. The total capacity of its 17 wind farms is 287 MW. In addition, Nelja Energia has a minority share in two biogas power and heat cogeneration plants in Estonia. In 2017, Nelja Energia produced 0.8 terawatt hours of electricity.
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