Australian mining company Ark Energy has announced it is to acquire a 100% interest in utility-scale wind and solar energy developer Epuron Holdings Pty.
Ark Energy – which is a wholly-owned Australian subsidiary of Korea Zinc Company – will gain ~4,200MW of early-stage solar and wind development projects through the acquisition, located across National Electricity Market (NEM) states in Australia, including Queensland, New South Wales and Tasmania.
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Additionally, it will gain a further investigation pipeline of ~4,800MW as well as the continued development of ~5,860MW of projects that fall under Epuron’s exiting Joint Development Agreements with counterparties.
“We will leverage our parent company’s strong balance sheet to expand Epuron’s existing business model and leverage the group’s internal demand from the production of green non-ferrous metals, and our own demand from green hydrogen production, to fast-track the build-out of Epuron’s development portfolio,” said Yun B. Choi, chairman of Ark Energy and vice chairman of Korea Zinc.
Following the acquisition, Ark Energy will own and operate ~7MW of projects, all located within the Northern Territory, and own a 50% stake in renewables technology and data company Fulcrum3D.
Epuron has developed over 3,000MW of renewable energy capacity with ~1,000MW of that now operating or under construction. In 2019, it sold a 33.7MW construction-ready solar-plus-storage project in the Northern Territory of Australia, developed together with UK-based Island Green Power, to Italian oil and gas giant Eni.
“Our decision to bring in Ark Energy as new owners follows a strategic review in which we decided to pivot towards long term ownership of our renewable energy projects in Australia,” said Epuron’s co-founder, Andrew Durran.
“With Ark we are excited by the potential to apply our experience to more projects and play an even larger role in Australia’s energy transition.”
The acquisition is subject to regulatory approvals, and is expected to be complete in H1 2022.