The US fund Blackstone has agreed to invest up to two billion euros in the Danish company Eurowind Energy, according to press agencies. Eurowind Energy co-founder and CEO Jens Rasmussen previously told Energynomics that approximately 30% of Eurowind’s investments are made from its own funds, and the rest from third-party sources – such as financial institutions, banks or private equity funds, and that one third of the planned investments could go to Romania.
Here is what Jens Rasmussen previously said in a meeting with the Romanian press, which Energynomics also attended, at its headquarters in Hobro.
“Romania is one of our most important markets… Our strategic advantage was that we started looking beyond the borders early, while our competitors did not,” recalls Rasmussen, CEO and one of the three partners who own Eurowind.
First, the Danish company expanded into Poland and Germany, and in 2010-11 it also entered the Romanian market.
“We already had a lot of experience on the German market, which we used in expanding into emerging markets. Our objective is to sell energy. We aim to have 50-60% bilateral contracts (PPAs), and the rest is sold on the market,” says Rasmussen, who considers Romania’s contract-for-difference (CfD) system among the best in the world.
“In total, we have invested 2.5 billion euros so far and we are preparing for global investments of about 1 billion euros per year in all markets. It is much more interesting to invest in European markets now than in 2020. We have reduced our investments in the US, but we are growing in Europe”, which means that the transition cannot be made without gas, which acts complementary to renewables to ensure the load of the grid, and nuclear must be seen as the enemy of the environment, with high hidden costs and unviable in the long term.
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In Romania, Eurowind Energy will invest a third of the global budget, if the grid allows it, Rasmussen also told us. Currently, there are some delays in the projects related to bureaucracy and the policies of the grid and system operators, but once these barriers are overcome, the Danish company will have installed a capacity of about 1GW in wind and solar parks, but in storage, in the next five years, in Romania.
According to Bloomberg and Agerpres, Blackstone’s investment will provide capital to accelerate Eurowind’s renewable energy development activities at a time when energy demand in Europe is growing rapidly. Blackstone estimates that there are opportunities to invest more than $500 billion in European assets by 2035, including in energy transition, energy security, electrification, reindustrialization and digitalization. The financing agreement, which is expected to be completed by the end of 2026, will make Blackstone a co-owner of Eurowind, with a 24.7% stake. Original founders Jens Rasmussen, who is also the CEO of the Danish firm, along with energy and telecommunications group Norlys, will remain majority shareholders.
