Orix grows renewables portfolio with 80% Elawan Energy stake

Japanese financial services group Orix Corporation has completed its acquisition of an 80% stake in Spanish renewable energy company Elawan Energy.

“With the acquisition of Elawan, Orix will continue to strengthen its position as a renewable energy leader globally and help realize a more sustainable world through its corporate activities,” Orix stated.

The deal, first announced in December 2020, lifts Orix’s installed capacity to around 3GW, including wind, solar, hydro, and geothermal among other technologies.

“Elawan is Orix’s first strategic group company in the overseas renewable energy business and will be a platform for Orix to expand its renewable energy business globally in the future,” the company stated, adding that it aims to increase installed capacity to around 8GW in the next five years.

Elawan operates and develops wind and solar projects in fourteen countries, including Belgium, Brazil, Poland, South Africa, Spain, Turkey, and the US.

To date it has developed 2.9GW of projects and today has a development pipeline of more than 10GW as well as 726MW of projects currently in operation and another 598MW under construction.

The deal follows Orix’s acquisition of a 20% stake in Greenko Energy Holdings, India’s leading renewables company, in March this year and its acquisition of Gravis Capital Management, an active investor in the renewables sector, in January.

Orix also operates around 1GW of solar power generation capacity in Japan and plans to expand into wind and geothermal. Founded as a leasing company in 1964, the company’s interests today range from banking and life insurance to real estate and renewable energy.