Watson Farley & Williams (“WFW”) has advised enercity Erneuerbare GmbH, a subsidiary of enercity AG (“enercity”), on its acquisition of the ‘Horizon’ wind farm portfolio from the owners of the Norderland Group. The closing of the transaction is subject to pending customary regulatory approvals and the parties have agreed not to disclose financial details.
The ‘Horizon’ portfolio comprises 60 onshore wind farms with 166 wind turbines and a total capacity of 365 MW. With this acquisition, enercity doubles its total wind power capacity to 712 MW and becomes one of the largest players in German onshore wind. The majority of the 60 wind farms are located close to the coast in north-west Lower Saxony in areas with favourable wind conditions, with others in Brandenburg, Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt. The majority of the turbines are new and have a high repowering potential.
enercity is a provider of sustainable and intelligent energy solutions. With a turnover of €5bn and more than 3,000 employees, it is one of the largest municipal energy service providers in Germany as of 2022. It supplies around 1m people with electricity, heat, natural gas and drinking water. enercity also offers other energy-related services focussed on electromobility, energy efficiency, decentralised customer solutions, telecommunications and smart infrastructure.
The Norderland Group, based in Westerholt (East Frisia), is one of the pioneers of wind energy in Germany and has successfully built up the ‘Horizon’ portfolio since the early 1990s.
The multidisciplinary WFW Germany team that advised enercity was led by Düsseldorf Energy Partner Dr Thorsten Volz, Hamburg Corporate Partner Dr Marcus Bechtel and Düsseldorf Energy Managing Associate Britta Wißmann. They were supported by Hamburg Partners Dr Christine Bader (Regulatory), Gerrit Bartsch (Tax), Thomas Hollenhorst (Projects & Structured Finance) and Carolin Woggon (Corporate), Düsseldorf Of Counsels Dr Thomas Wölfl (Real Estate) and Dr Christoph Benedict (Commercial), Senior Associates Katharina Flehr (Energy/Real Estate), Inès Stefen (Energy/Regulatory), Roman Schneider (Finance/Real Estate) and Marie-Theres Recifo (Finance) and Associates Robert Nagy (Corporate), Paul Philipp Breunig (Regulatory), Carlos Landschein (Finance/Real Estate) and Manuel Rustler (Tax).
Thorsten commented: “We are pleased to have advised enercity on their milestone acquisition of this major wind portfolio which helps secure their climate-friendly energy generation. Being instructed on this market-leading transaction highlights once again the prescience of opening in Dusseldorf with a focus on municipal energy suppliers and underlines WFW’s reputation as a market leader in the German energy sector”.
