Spain-based Repsol has agreed to buy 40 per cent of Hecate Energy, a Chicago-based company specializing in the development of PV solar and battery projects for energy storage. The acquisition is Repsol’s first move into the US renewables market. The company will have the option of acquiring Hecate Energy’s outstanding shares three years after this transaction closes. Other terms were not disclosed.
Hecate Energy has a portfolio of renewable projects totaling more than 40 GW. Of these, 16.8 GW are PV solar projects and energy storage associated with these assets, all at advanced stages of development. The company also participates in Hecate Grid, a battery platform for energy storage with a capacity of 4.3 GW. Most of Hecate’s assets are located in ERCOT, WECC, and PJM.
The US is the second renewables market that Repsol has entered outside Spain. Last July, it signed an agreement with the Ibereólica Renovables Group, which gave Repsol access to a portfolio of projects in Chile in operation, construction, or development. Outside of renewables operations, Repsol has operated in the US for more than two decades, and has oil and gas upstream assets in Pennsylvania, Texas, the Gulf of Mexico, and Alaska. Repsol also markets and trades natural gas, crude oil, and related products.
In a related development, Hecate Energy said that construction has begun on two solar projects totaling 600 MW. In Falls County, Texas, near Waco, Hecate developed the 500 MW solar and battery storage project, Roseland Solar, from inception and transferred it to the North American unit of an unnamed European utility in March.
