Smart Energy Finances: Enel Group sells Romanian stakes to Greece’s PPC

March 10, 2023 Editor

Deals of interest this week include Enel Group’s sale of all equity stakes in its Romanian operations to Greece’s Public Power Corporation (PPC) S.A., an Italian bank’s €120 million loan into digitalisation tech and a successful seed funding round for a water heater virtual power plant.

Enel sells Romanian operations to Greece’s Public Power Corporation

Enel Group is selling all equity stakes in Romania to PPC, the largest electric power company in Greece, for €1,3 billion ($1.3 billion).

The sale is part of the energy major’s attempt to reduce debt; their consolidated net debt amounts to approximately €1.7 billion ($1.8 billion).

It also comes as part of Enel Group’s disposal plan to reposition their business and geographic interests, as announced in their 2023 to 2025 strategic plan. The plan aims to focus the Group’s clean energy growth across targeted countries, namely Italy, Spain, the United States, Brazil, Chile and Colombia.

Enel Group has been operating in Romania since 2005 in power distribution and supply, as well as renewable energy, with over 500MW managed by Enel Green Power Romania and advanced energy services.

The Group’s Romanian distribution companies operate in three key areas of the country, namely Muntenia Sud (including Bucharest), Banat and Dobrogea, serving a total of over 3 million customers.

Closing of the sale is expected by the third quarter of 2023.

Have you read:
Tata Power and Enel Group to deploy smart meter and automation tech in India
Enel Grids 2022 global capacity additions ‘break record’ at 5.6GW

Debt financing for digitalisation

Italian investment bank Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (CDP) is lending €120 million ($127 million) to Milan-based energy and manufacturing company Prysmian group for innovative R&D and accelerating digitalisation.

The initiative being financed is part of a larger project focusing on four areas:

Innovative materials research (from the use of nanotechnology to new sustainable materials and solutions, management of low-voltage power grids and systems, and hybrid cables for the energy and telecommunications sector)
Testing (from the use of alternative materials for cable design to advanced cable operation technologies)
New product development (from dynamic cables for offshore renewable energy to high-performance optical fibre, e-mobility cable solutions and design of sensors for localising, monitoring and managing power grids)
Digital transformation and sustainability (from the implementation of digital solutions for machine learning and artificial intelligence to the development of sustainability impact assessment models)

Prysmian R&D is in line with the Paris Agreement and the European Green Deal and Horizon Europe directives for the promotion of clean, renewable energy.

Resources granted under the loan – which has a six-year maturity – are part of a long-standing collaboration between CDP and Prysmian Group:

“This transaction confirms the important role of CDP in supporting an Italian Group that is among the global leaders of its industry and invests considerably in research and development to continue its innovation journey,” stated Andrea Nuzzi, head of corporate and financial institutions, CDP.

Also of interest:
Finland invests in 150MWh VPP
Renewables + energy efficiency + demand response = the new transition equation

Seeded expansion for a water & EV-based VPP

Shifted Energy, a Hawaii-based Distributed Energy Resources (DER) company, closed a $4.3 million seed funding round to expand energy efficiency programmes and distribute smart energy products.

Shifted Energy deploys DER control and monitoring systems, machine-learning data analytics and dispatch optimisation software to its customer base, utilities included.

The company’s software creates Virtual Power Plants (VPPs) out of single and multifamily homes by connecting electrical appliances such as water heaters and EV chargers to a cloud-based platform. These resources are aggregated to benefit utilities as energy storage, load reduction and fast-frequency response.

Co-led by EPIC Ventures and Kapor Capital, with participating investors Buoyant Ventures, Startup Capital Ventures x SBI Fund, and Hunt Development, the funding round will be used for talent acquisition and expanding coverage areas throughout the US, Canada and Australia.

“As the energy transition continues to gain steam, we see a tremendous opportunity for Shifted Energy to bring new technologies to local communities for the benefit of both individual ratepayers and large-scale utilities,” said Allison Myers, co-founder and general partner at Buoyant Ventures.

For the latest in finance and investment announcements coming out of the energy industry, make sure to follow our finance column, Smart Energy Finances Weekly.

Cheers,
Yusuf Latief,
Content Producer, Smart Energy International