JLEN Environmental Assets (JLEN) has announced that it has acquired Northern Hydropower Holdings Limited (NHHL) for a total consideration, including working capital, of £4.74m. NHHL owns 100% of the equity in Northern Hydropower Limited, which in turn holds the rights to two operational hydro projects, which includes a co-located operational battery storage system at one of the sites. Both hydro projects are accredited under the 20-year Feed-in-Tariff scheme.
The assets are located in Yorkshire and Cornwall. The acquisition represents JLEN’s second investment into run-of-river hydropower and battery storage assets, and further increases the diversification within JLEN’s portfolio of environmental infrastructure projects (these include wind, solar, anaerobic digestion, waste and wastewater). NHHL has been acquired from a group of high-net-worth investors, which provided the original funding under an Enterprise Investment Scheme.
This acquisition increases the total capacity of renewable energy assets in the JLEN investment portfolio to 304.7 MW. It was funded by a draw-down under the Company’s revolving credit facility.
About Northern Power’s hydro and battery storage assets
The Yorkshire-based assets are:
- Knottingley hydro (pictured), a 500kW dual turbine hydro project located on the River Aire, which was commissioned in October 2017.
- A 1.2MW battery that is co-located with the hydro project at Knottingley. The battery was commissioned in January 2018.
The Cornish-based asset is:
- De Lank hydro, a 99kW hydro project located on the De Lank River, commissioned in October 2011.
Comments from Richard Morse, Chairman of JLEN
“We are pleased to make our second investment into run-of-river hydro and battery storage, building upon our existing portfolio in this sector. As with our other hydro assets, these projects have a proven operational history, benefit from strong contractual revenues and broaden the diversification within the JLEN portfolio.”
[QD comment: A key tenet of JLEN’s approach is its diversified portfolio. Run of the river hydro assets such as these are relatively scarce and there limited availability means that these are unlikely to be a huge component of JLEN’s. Nonetheless, they offer diversification benefits and JLEN’s manager will be pleased to be able to add these assets to the portflio.]