Southern Power, a subsidiary of Southern Company, has agreed to sell 33% interest in its solar portfolio to Global Atlantic Financial Group for $1.175bn.
Image: Southern Power will sell 26 operating solar facilities. Photo: courtesy of Photo by American Public Power Association on Unsplash.
Under the terms of the deal, Global Atlantic Financial Group will acquire a project portfolio of 26 operating solar facilities. These projects have a combined generation capacity of approximately 1.7GW.
Power generated by these facilities is sold to customers across the country under long-term contracts.
Southern Power president and CEO Mark Lantrip said: “We are excited about our new partnership with Global Atlantic.
“Our partnership has strong strategic alignment, as we are both focused on delivering long-term value to our customers and stakeholders. We look forward to working alongside Global Atlantic as we continue our work to provide clean, safe, reliable and affordable wholesale energy to our customers across the U.S.”
Southern Power, through its subsidiaries, will act as the general partner in the partnership. It will also maintain overall operational responsibilities for the projects.
Recently, Southern Company signed an agreement to sell Gulf Power, Florida City Gas and its ownership interests in two power plants located in Florida, US to NextEra for nearly $6.475bn, including assumption of approximately $1.4bn of Gulf Power debt
The sale is a part of the firm’s efforts to reduce debt and improve its balance sheet.
Gulf Power serves nearly 450,000 customers in eight counties throughout northwest Florida. The utility has about 9,500 miles (15,288km) of power lines and 2,300MW of electric generating capacity.
With 3,700 miles (5,954km) of natural gas pipelines, Florida City Gas serves nearly 110,000 residential and commercial natural-gas customers in Florida’s Miami-Dade, Brevard, St. Lucie and Indian River counties.
The acquisition of Florida City Gas is expected to be completed in the third quarter of this year, while the Gulf Power and natural-gas generating plant acquisitions are anticipated to close in the first half of 2019.