John Laing Environmental buys up Yorkshire hydro projects

(Sharecast News) - John Laing Environmental Assets Group (JLEN) announced the acquisition of Yorkshire Hydropower Holdings (YHHL) for a total consideration, including working capital, of £4.3m on Friday.
The London-listed firm said YHHL owns 100% of the equity in Yorkshire Hydropower, which in turn holds the rights to two operational hydro projects and an operational battery storage system.

It represented the company's first investment in two new sectors - run-of-river hydro and battery storage - which the board said further diversified its portfolio of environmental infrastructure projects including wind, solar, anaerobic digestion, waste and wastewater.

YHHL was being acquired from a group of high-net-worth investors, which provided the original funding under the Enterprise Investment Scheme.

The Yorkshire-based projects acquired were Kirkthorpe hydro, a 500kW single turbine hydro project located on the River Calder, which was commissioned on 21 November 2016; Thrybergh hydro, a twin screw 260kW hydro project located on the River Don, commissioned 26 October 2015; and a 1.2MW battery co-located at Thrybergh, commissioned in January 2018.

Both hydro projects were accredited under the 20-year feed-in-tariff scheme.

JLEN said the battery storage project at Thrybergh was currently dedicated to a firm frequency response contract.

The acquisition increased the total capacity of renewable energy assets in the JLEN investment portfolio to 281.16MW, and was funded by the group's internal cash resources.

"We are pleased to make our first investment into two new asset classes in run-of-river hydro and battery storage," said JLEN chairman Richard Morse.

"These projects have a proven operational history, benefit from strong contractual revenues and broaden the diversification within the JLEN portfolio.

"Furthermore, they demonstrate the synergistic benefits of co-locating renewable energy generation and storage technology."