UPDATE: German power and gas utility E.On has no plans to sell its U.S. renewable energy business, E.On Climate & Renewables, which is headquartered in Chicago.
The market is too attractive to walk away from, says a company spokesman in an email to GER. He points out that E.On Climate & Renewables and E.On’s Midwest power business are two separate entities.
Below are highlights of the email we received from E.On:
There are definitively no plans to divest the [U.S.] wind business. Quite the contrary, we are currently very bullish about the future of wind and solar in the U.S. given President Obama’s new energy policy…
The E.On spokesman declined to comment on the reported sale of the U.S. regulated business.
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GER understands that E.On’s U.S. wind portfolio is not for sale. It is a separate business that operates as part of the company’s Chicago-based E.ON Climate & Renewables business and is not part of the company’s Midwest power utility business. We’ve called E.On and will post when we get an update.
German utility E.On has hired Goldman Sachs to advise it on the sell of its U.S. power utility business. SparkSpread, a subscription-based industry news site, first reported the news.
E.On acquired its Midwest utilities as part of its 2002, $14.30 billion (€10.4 billion /£9.5 billion) acquisition of Powergen, UK power company, which owned these U.S. utilities.
According to the company Website E.ON Climate & Renewables is developing a 79.5 megawatts wind project in the towns of Hartsville and Hornellsville, NY.
In September GER reported that E.On scored a $121 million Department of Energy cash grant, at the time the largest grant for a single project, to support construction of its 249-megawatt Pyron Wind Farm in Texas.