ScottishPower Acquires 800MW Solar Portfolio in UK

ScottishPower, owned by Spanish energy firm Iberdrola, has signed two deals to acquire 17 solar photovoltaic (PV) projects in Britain, with a combined capacity of more than 800 megawatts (MW), the company said on Friday.

The deals take ScottishPower’s market share of Britain’s solar industry to 9% from 2%, the firm said.

ScottishPower has bought 12 solar PV projects with a combined capacity of 519 MW and 70 MW of energy storage capacity from renewables developer Elgin Energy and the rest of the solar projects from developer Lightsource BP.

The projects in England, Scotland and Wales should be operational by 2025 and will provide enough clean energy to power more than 220,000 homes, ScottishPower said. Commissioning of the sites will require investment of around 500 million pounds ($687 million), it added.

“This boost to our solar generation pipeline complements our existing growth plans for wind and storage,” said Lindsay McQuade, chief executive of ScottishPower Renewables.

“With plans to invest close to 4 billion pounds by 2025, doubling the volume of renewable electricity we produce, we are taking action every day to deliver on our commitment to deploy more renewables … to electrify how we live, work and travel,” she added. ($1 = 0.7282 pounds)

In addition to this, ScottishPower is also involved with a significant wind power project in Britain. At the Global Investment Summit organised last year by UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson just two weeks before the start of COP26 in Glasgow, Iberdrola announced its plans to invest £6 billion in developing offshore wind complex East Anglia Hub in the UK, the company’s biggest investment anywhere in the world and one of the largest offshore wind projects worldwide.

Glasgow is the headquarters for ScottishPower, which was the main partner of this summit. Iberdrola’s chairman, Ignacio Galán, confirmed that this new investment package would join a record £10 billion investment earmarked by the group in its 2020-2025 plan, enabling it to double its renewable generation capacity and drive decarbonisation in the United Kingdom.