TotalEnergies snaps up major Canadian renewables portfolio

TotalEnergies has acquired an 800MW portfolio of wind and solar projects in Canada while also closing deals to buy European renewables developer VSB Group and a Scatec subsidiary.

The French oil major announced that it has agreed to buy the Alberta-based renewables portfolio from British developer RES.

TotalEnergies named the 184MW Big Sky Solar facility developed by RES in Alberta and commissioned at the end of February as a project it has acquired. 600MW of the portfolio of wind and solar assets remains in development.

More than two-thirds of the electricity produced by Big Sky Solar will be sold under a power purchase agreement. TotalEnergies will sell the rest on the power market, as well as selling carbon credits generated by the facility.

The deal brings TotalEnergies a 500-employee business with 475MW in operation or construction and an 18GW pipeline of wind, solar and storage, mainly in Germany, France and Poland.

TotalEnergies also closed an agreement reached last year with Scatec, a Norwegian renewable energy company, to acquire 100% of its subsidiary SN Power, which owns the 225MW Bujagali hydropower plant among other assets in Uganda.

“The completion of these three acquisitions in Europe, North America and Africa will contribute to our targets of 35GW of gross renewable capacity by 2025 and over 100TWh of electricity production by 2030,” said Stéphane Michel, president of gas, renewables and power at TotalEnergies.

“These acquisitions strengthen our operations in markets where we are deploying our Integrated Power business, like Germany and in North America, and in countries, such as Uganda, where we can leverage synergies with our exploration and production activities.

“Furthermore, these acquisitions will contribute to cash flow growth and to our goal of reaching our 12% profitability target in the electricity segment.”