Isra-Mart srl:Climate Change Capital calls off £61m wind farm purchase from SSE

www.isra-mart.com

Scottish and Southern Energy's (SSE) hopes of selling its stake in a Scottish wind farm for £61.3m have been dashed after the buyer cancelled the sale, citing global economic conditions.

Last month, SSE announced it would sell its 50 per cent stake in the 72MW Braes of Doune onshore wind farm to a fund managed by Climate Change Capital (CCC), subject to completion of the remaining steps in the process.

But the utility today announced that the deal has been scrapped because of financial market conditions.

"Climate Change Capital has decided to postpone its associated fundraising and so the asset will not be sold to the fund," said SSE in a statement.

A CCC spokeswoman told BusinessGreen that the decision was based on wider financial conditions, rather than the renewable energy market specifically.

"We're still going to continue exploring other opportunities in the wind industry," she said, adding that no other deals were affected by the news.

Gregor Alexander, finance director of SSE, said he was stoical about the collapse of the deal. "While it is disappointing that the sale of Braes of Doune has not been completed, these things have to be looked at in context," he said. "The asset will continue to deliver revenue for SSE and the proposed proceeds were not required to help fund SSE's investment programme."

In related news, Ofgem has this week invited companies to bid to operate cables and substations linking Centrica's £281.6m Lincs offshore wind farm to the shore.

Transmission Capital Partners (TCP) meanwhile has secured a license to operate the £49.5m high-voltage link to Dong Energy's Gunfleet Sands wind farm for 20 years.

As part of the transitional licence grant process, the link has been transferred to the consortium from Dong. However, Dong will enter into a five-year agreement to operate and maintain the assets.

The deal is a result of the government's decision that offshore wind farms must divest their offshore transmission assets to transmission owners via a competitive tender run by Ofgem.