ČEZ focuses on Germany, partners with Aquila Capital

“The total capacity could be around 120 MW, depending on the quality of the projects that Aquila Capital is able to find for us. At the moment, we already have our first offer for an approximately 30 MW project, which we will analyse,”
explained Tomáš Pleskač, head of the Development team and director of the international division.

According to Tomáš Pleskač, investments in renewable energy are one of the pillars of ČEZ’s strategy. The priority is now to focus on countries close to ČEZ. The company also sees great potential in Germany.

In addition to investments in renewable energy and related technologies, ČEZ is also focusing on other assets. It has expressed interest in the assets of Swedish company Vattenfall, which include modern coal-fired units, coal mines and several hydropower plants. However, according to a recently published study, the investment would not pay off and is too risky.

This year, Aquila Capital has already invested, for example, in small hydropower plants in Scandinavia, acquired the assets of Småkraft AS and a solar power plant in the UK. Following the acquisition of a majority stake in Norway’s Midtfjellet wind farm, the company has a total of 500 MW of installed wind power capacity.

The focus on Germany and renewables is evident from previous acquisitions, when ČEZ, through its subsidiary INVEN CAPITAL, first invested in Sonnenbatterie (now simply sonnen), followed by Sunfire. The importance of the German market for ČEZ is also demonstrated by the fact that it recently opened a new office in Hamburg.

Wind power in Germany is generally on the rise. According to preliminary data for last year, wind power plants generated 28.7 TWh more electricity than the previous year (or as much as 34 TWh according to StromReport).

2015 records: #Windenergy rises 66% and overtakes lignite in December https://t.co/DR1qrx311vpic.twitter.com/PYIWUQupHh

— Strom-Report (@StromReport) 4 January 2016

In December 2015, among other records, the monthly record for electricity generation from wind power plants was broken – a total of 11.98 TWh of electricity was generated.