CEE Group announces acquisition of Dutch photovoltaic park from BayWa r.e.

Ham­burg-based asset man­ag­er CEE Group, which spe­cial­izes in renew­able ener­gy, announced the acqui­si­tion of anoth­er PV project in the Nether­lands. Locat­ed in the province of Fries­land, the Venekoten/Oosterwolde project has a nom­i­nal capac­i­ty of 53 megawatt-peak (MWp). The sell­er is the glob­al­ly active com­pa­ny Bay­Wa r.e. As financ­ing bank, the Dutch Rabobank was involved in the trans­ac­tion.

The Venekoten/Oosterwolde ground-mount­ed solar park is locat­ed in the north of the Nether­lands. The plant, which was already com­plet­ed and com­mis­sioned in Sep­tem­ber 2020, has a nom­i­nal out­put of around 53 MWp. It is equipped with mono­fa­cial mod­ules from Tier‑1 man­u­fac­tur­ers Han­wha Q.Cells and Chint Astroner­gy. The mod­ules are firm­ly ele­vat­ed on the sub­struc­ture.

The sell­er of the plant is the Ger­man com­pa­ny Bay­Wa r.e., a lead­ing glob­al devel­op­er, ser­vice provider, whole­saler and sup­pli­er of ener­gy solu­tions in the renew­able ener­gy sec­tor. Bay­Wa r.e. is a sub­sidiary of Munich-based Bay­Wa AG, which recent­ly cel­e­brat­ed its 100th anniver­sary. The par­ties have agreed not to dis­close the pur­chase price of the trans­ac­tion. The Dutch Rabobank was involved in financ­ing the pur­chase.

Expansion of Dutch PV portfolio already in planning stage

“We are pleased about the sale of this high-qual­i­ty PV project to the CEE Group. Our two com­pa­nies are linked by a long-stand­ing, high­ly coop­er­a­tive part­ner­ship, in the course of which we have already been able to imple­ment sev­er­al large-scale PV projects togeth­er. With regard to the inter­na­tion­al cli­mate tar­gets, these projects make an impor­tant con­tri­bu­tion,” explains Matthias Taft, CEO of Bay­Wa r.e.

“We have been work­ing in part­ner­ship with our project part­ner Bay­Wa r.e. for many years. Our col­lab­o­ra­tion is char­ac­terised by an excep­tion­al­ly high lev­el of pro­fes­sion­al­ism, a great will­ing­ness to coop­er­ate and mutu­al trust. We appre­ci­ate Bay­Wa r.e.’s high qual­i­ty stan­dards, both in terms of project devel­op­ment and tech­ni­cal imple­men­ta­tion,” explains Detlef Schreiber, CEO of the CEE Group. Fran­jo Sal­ic, Head of Inter­na­tion­al Invest­ments, adds: “On behalf of our entire team, I would like to thank every­one involved, both on the sell­er side and on the CEE Group side, for the excel­lent coop­er­a­tion.”

The Venekoten/Oosterwolde project was CEE Group’s sec­ond PV project in the Nether­lands. In the mean­time, sev­er­al more projects have been added and CEE Group’s Dutch port­fo­lio cur­rent­ly has a total nom­i­nal capac­i­ty of 250 MWp. The expan­sion by anoth­er large PV project in the Nether­lands is already in prepa­ra­tion.

Excellent location conditions in the Netherlands

“With a nom­i­nal out­put of 53 MWp, the Venekoten/Oosterwolde project is an impor­tant pil­lar for us in the Dutch mar­ket and has a scale that is inter­est­ing for investors in terms of advan­tages in the cost struc­ture and the lever­ag­ing of syn­er­gies. In addi­tion, the tech­no­log­i­cal stan­dard in the Nether­lands is com­pa­ra­ble to that which we find in Ger­many, for exam­ple,” says Frank Grafe, CIO of the CEE Group and in this func­tion respon­si­ble for new busi­ness and for the asset man­age­ment of the exist­ing port­fo­lio.

Accord­ing to the EU mar­ket out­look of the Solar­Pow­er Europe organ­i­sa­tion, Ger­many remains the largest Euro­pean solar mar­ket in 2022 with 7.9 gigawatts (GW) of new­ly installed capac­i­ty. It is fol­lowed by Spain with 7.5 GW, Poland with 4.9 GW and the Nether­lands with 4.0 GW. In terms of the expan­sion of solar pow­er capac­i­ty per capi­ta, the Nether­lands is in first place and could expand this to more than 1,000 watts per inhab­i­tant in 2022. This is prob­a­bly also relat­ed to the basic con­di­tions for invest­ment in renew­able ener­gies in the Nether­lands.

Proven partnership with BayWa r.e. creates security

The CEE Group invests exclu­sive­ly in the pho­to­volta­ic and wind sec­tors. This applies to all of the company’s inter­na­tion­al tar­get mar­kets. “We con­cen­trate on clear­ly defined tech­nolo­gies and make no com­pro­mis­es in this respect. Our high lev­el of exper­tise in the two tech­nolo­gies men­tioned is a clear com­pet­i­tive advan­tage — in terms of acqui­si­tion, but above all also in terms of oper­a­tional man­age­ment,” says Schreiber.

About CEE Group:

CEE Group is a Ham­burg-based asset man­ag­er spe­cial­iz­ing in renew­able ener­gies. With a track record of over 90 trans­ac­tions in the renew­able ener­gy sec­tor and a port­fo­lio of approx­i­mate­ly 2.3 bil­lion euros in assets under man­age­ment in Europe, CEE is a com­pe­tent and reli­able part­ner. The main focus is on wind and solar ener­gy. The CEE Group has 45 onshore wind farms with an installed capac­i­ty of around 636 MW and 47 pho­to­volta­ic projects with around 891 MWp. The total capac­i­ty thus amounts to around 1,527 MW. (as of Dec. 31, 2022).

As an inter­na­tion­al­ly oper­at­ing com­pa­ny, the CEE Group offers its cus­tomers sus­tain­able invest­ment con­cepts with long-term return oppor­tu­ni­ties in the growth mar­ket for renew­able ener­gies. With its inde­pen­dent­ly oper­at­ing com­pa­nies, the com­pa­ny has a com­pre­hen­sive range of ser­vices for projects in this seg­ment. Investors are in par­tic­u­lar insti­tu­tion­al investors with a long-term inter­est in renew­able ener­gies.