Mitsubishi invests 700 million euros in a European developer – pv magazine France

January 31, 2024 Marie Beyer

The investment arm of the Japanese group Mitsubishi has announced an investment in the Danish group Energy Europe, which explores, develops, finances, builds and operates renewable energy reserves. As its name suggests, Energy Europe delivers projects across Europe. In France, the company was handed over pv magazine have nearly a gigawatt of projects in development, at different stages.

For details, Mitsubishi HC Capital will subscribe for approximately 72 million shares and acquire approximately 3 million shares from three major shareholders, namely European Energy Holding, JPZ Assistance ApS and MDP Invest Aps which respectively own 74.2%, 11.3% and 13.8% of the shares previously . operation. If its founder Knud Erik Andersen remains the majority through his investment company (which controls European Energy Holdings), Mitsubishi HC Capital will now own around 20% of the company’s capital.

“The capital improvement more than triples our equity, giving us more opportunities to accelerate our operations,” explains the manager. And for good reason, the total revenue of the operation will provide European Energy with around 700 million euros of additional equity. For the year 2022, the company had already achieved total sales of 438 million euros (compared to 328 million in 2021 and 206 million in 2020).

For Nutrients, the intention of this investment also depends on the ability of European Energy to position itself in the Power-to-X segment by producing green energy for other energy uses such as e-methanol and green hydrogen.

When asked by pv magazine on the adequacy of European and national support policies for the development of the European solar industry, Thorvald Spanggaard, executive vice president responsible for project development in the European region, explained that he strongly believes in the effectiveness of a diversified business model . “Our business is stable because of its independence from any national policy. In general, our portfolio faces good momentum, especially regarding permitting. However, we maintain that individual states must continue their efforts to support renewable energy initiatives, as this support remains essential for the sustainable development of this sector ».

Energy Europe claims 60 GW of renewable project capacity in Europe (including 24 GW in exploration) and 0.9 GW in operation. Of the 36 GW in development, 28 GW concern photovoltaic projects.

In the first nine months of 2023, the group sold some 927 GWh of solar electricity compared to 72 in the same period in 2022 and 181 in total in 2021.