Renewables platform sPower to merge with AES U.S. clean energy business under AES-AIMCo agreement
As part of an agreement between AES Corporation and the Alberta Investment Management Corporation (AIMCo), leading renewable energy Independent Power Producer (IPP), sPower, will be merged with AES’s clean energy development business in the United States.
The two companies, which own sPower, intend to unite the two renewable efforts to accelerate the U.S. transition to cleaner energy. The move was motivated in part by the rapid growth of renewables as a source of electricity generation in the United States and growing efforts to reduce carbon footprints at nearly all societal levels.
“We share our customers’ commitments to a more sustainable energy future. Together, we can create a safe, resilient, and carbon-free grid,” AES President and CEO Andrés Gluski said. “The merger of sPower with AES’ clean energy business will benefit customers by providing access to a broader portfolio of product offerings as well as an expanded highly skilled and experienced team to drive innovation at scale.”
AES and AIMCo have worked together on sPower since 2017. Under their fully combined development pipeline, 75 percent of projects will be owned by AES and 25 percent by AIMCo. The new platform will manage the existing 2.5 GW of operating assets and 2.6 GW of contracted backlog once the transaction closes in the next few months.
“Our experience working with AES has shown that they are a world leader in delivering on customers’ sustainable energy needs, and the formation of this new renewables platform in the US will take that capability to an even higher level,” Kevin Uebelein, CEO of AIMCo, said. “On behalf of our clients and consistent with our investment mandate, we are excited about the value the next phase of our partnership will bring to our many stakeholders.”
On the AES side of the offering, its wholly-owned businesses AES Distributed Energy, and a wind development team formerly of Advance Energy will join the merger. Between them and sPower, the companies stand to become one of the top growth platforms among solar, wind, and energy storage.
