By Nina Chestney
LONDON, Jan 14 (Reuters) - ScottishPower, owned by Spanish
energy firm Iberdrola, has signed two deals to acquire
17 solar photovoltaic (PV) projects in Britain, with a combined
capacity of more than 800 megawatts (MW), the company said on
Friday.
The deals take ScottishPower's market share of Britain's
solar industry to 9% from 2%, the firm said.
ScottishPower has bought 12 solar PV projects with a
combined capacity of 519 MW and 70 MW of energy storage capacity
from renewables developer Elgin Energy and the rest of the solar
projects from developer Lightsource BP.
The projects in England, Scotland and Wales should be
operational by 2025 and will provide enough clean energy to
power more than 220,000 homes, ScottishPower said.
Commissioning of the sites will require investment of around
500 million pounds ($687 million), it added.
"This boost to our solar generation pipeline complements our
existing growth plans for wind and storage," said Lindsay
McQuade, chief executive of ScottishPower Renewables.
"With plans to invest close to 4 billion pounds by 2025,
doubling the volume of renewable electricity we produce, we are
taking action every day to deliver on our commitment to deploy
more renewables ... to electrify how we live, work and travel,"
she added.
($1 = 0.7282 pounds)
(Reporting by Nina Chestney; editing by David Evans)
BP (BP.)