Spanish power utility Iberdrola is seeking buyers for minority stakes in its three offshore wind projects in the German Baltic Sea, two sources with knowledge of the matter said.
Iberdrola earns most of its income from renewable energy and power grids and is pushing hard into offshore wind after taking the biggest package of rights in bumper capacity auctions in Britain earlier this year.
Soaring turbines planted off windy coastlines are key to many governments' plans to wean themselves off fossil fuels, which have taken on fresh urgency after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Germany plans to boost renewable energy projects as part of a bid to reduce its reliance on Russian gas.
Building offshore wind farms is very expensive, so developers often look to raise money by selling stakes to investment funds. Iberdrola sold a 40% stake in the East Anglia One site in the British North Sea to Macquarie's Green Investment Group in 2019.
With an eye on higher valuations the market was giving to offshore-focused peers such as Denmark's Orsted, Iberdrola had considered spinning off that part of the business.
The company parked that idea last November and hired Santander alongside Bank of America to help it sell minority stakes in the three parks, one of the sources said.
It has announced investments of 800 million euros ($866.5 million) in Windanker and 2.5 billion euros in Baltic Eagle and Wikinger.
Spanish newspaper Expansion first reported on Wednesday that Iberdrola has hired Santander SAN.MC to help it sell a minority stake in Wikinger.
Iberdrola, Santander and Bank of America declined to comment.
Taken together, the German projects are due to have installed capacity of 1.1 gigawatts (GW) once built. One gigawatt is roughly equal to two coal-fired power plants.
($1 = 0.9233 euros)
(Reuters - Additional reporting by Inti Landauro; editing by Jason Neely, Kirsten Donovan)
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