Endesa buys Acciona Energía’s hydropower business for $1 billion.

Endesa has reached an agreement with Acciona Energía to buy 626 megawatts (MW) of hydroelectric power plants in Spain worth 1 billion euros, the company led by José Manuel Entrecanales said.

Specifically, as a result of this transaction, Acciona Energía sells 100% to Corporación Acciona Hidráulica. The deal is debt-free and will generate an estimated capital increase of €620 million.

The operation is scheduled to close in the first half of 2025 once the necessary competition and foreign investment approvals have been obtained.

Corporación Acciona Hidráulica’s portfolio consists of 34 hydroelectric power plants with a total installed capacity of 626 MW. The plants are located in Aragon, Soria, Valencia and Navarre and have long-term concession agreements with a remaining average life of about 30 years.

These are reservoir stations (56% of capacity), flow stations (30% of capacity) and pumping stations (14%) with an annual output of about 1.3 TWh.

Acciona Energía noted that the operation “is part of its asset rotation strategy.” This is therefore in addition to the sale of 175 MW of hydraulics concluded a few days ago to Elawan Energy, a subsidiary of Orix Corporation, for €293 million with a capital gain of €180 million.

800 million capital gain

Thanks to the agreement of these two transactions this week, the group chaired by José Manuel Entrecanales will receive a total capital increase of around 800 million euros.

Meanwhile, thanks to this operation, Endesa is expanding the production of energy from renewable sources, which is one of its main goals, and is reclaiming some hydraulic assets that originally belonged to it, since they fell into the hands of Acciona in 2009, when the alliance between Enel and the company was terminated broken” to take over the electric utility company in a takeover bid.