GIP buys Latin American wind and solar developer Atlas Renewable Energy

The acquisition marks GIP’s second major incursion into wind energy, following its purchase last month of Wpd’s offshore wind unit. The renamed Skyborn Renewables is developing around 30GW of offshore wind projects in Europe and Asia.

Until recently, Atlas was primarily a solar developer but it diversified into wind earlier this year.

In April, it signed a power purchase agreement to supply Enel Generación Chile with 1.3 TWh of power, annually, from three wind farms with 417MW of installed capacity.

In June, the company acquired the 378MW Juramento wind project in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais from France’s Voltalia.

The firm is the second largest developer of renewable energy in Latin America and until recently concentrated on solar energy, operating 14 facilities across Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and Uruguay with 2.3GW of installed capacity.

“Atlas adds a large-scale Latin American platform to our solar, wind and battery storage assets in North America, Europe and Asia. We look forward to supporting Atlas’ management team and leveraging GIP’s extensive experience and relationships to further scale the solar business across other renewable technologies,” said Ronnie Hawkins, emerging markets partner at GIP.

Actis founded Atlas in early 2017 to develop, build and operate renewable projects throughout Latin America.

Michael Harrington, Actis partner and head of Americas, said: “The sale of Atlas marks our fifth renewable platform exit in the Americas, where we have now built and owned over 7GW of contracted wind and solar capacity, making Actis one of the largest private investors in the energy transition of the region.”