PROVIDENCE – Deepwater Wind LLC will be acquired by the Danish company Ørsted for $510 million, the two companies announced Monday.
Ørsted has entered into an agreement with the New York City-based, investment management firm D.E. Shaw Group to acquire a 100 percent equity interest in the Rhode Island-based wind energy company.
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The deal is subject to approval from federal regulators and is expected to close by end of 2018.
Ørsted operates 24 offshore wind farms worldwide, accounting for more than 5,100 megawatts of wind power.
Following the acquisition, the organization will be called Ørsted US Offshore Wind. The local management team will be headed by Ørsted US Offshore Wind CEO Thomas Brostrøm, Co-CEO Jeff Grybowski (current Deepwater CEO), President and Chief Financial Officer David Hang (also from Deepwater), and Chief Operating Officer Claus Bøjle Møller from the Ørsted team.
The company said that development of the company’s new 50-turbine Revolution Wind project for Rhode Island and its investments in Rhode Island will continue as planned.
Operations at the Block Island Wind Farm will also continue as normal.
“As we invest in the new company, Rhode Island will play a very important role in our growth plans. We stand behind Deepwater Wind’s commitments to invest $40 million in Rhode Island ports and create hundreds of jobs locally building the Revolution Wind farm and other projects,” said Martin Neubert, CEO of Offshore Wind at Ørsted in a statement Monday.
Ørsted said that it plans to grow Deepwater Wind’s current Rhode Island presence in the coming years to make Providence and Boston the two major hubs of the company’s U.S. offshore wind activities.
The company noted that Deepwater’s portfolio has a total potential capacity of approx. 3.3 gigawatts on the U.S. East Coast.
“Ørsted is one of the world’s great clean energy companies and real pioneers in the offshore wind sector. We could not be more pleased with this combination, which will bring together two great teams to realize an enormous clean energy resource for coastal populations in the United States,” said Grybowski in a statement. “None of this would be possible without the vision, creativity and dedication of our owners at D.E. Shaw, a truly innovative and steadfast owner. Bryan Martin will long be known as the father of offshore wind in America. We move from one pioneer to another.”
Current Deepwater Wind personnel based in Rhode Island will continue to work in that office, and the company said that it is expected to add new long-term corporate jobs in Rhode Island.
The new company’s CEO, Brostrøm, will operate out of Boston.
Chris Bergenheim is the PBN web editor. Email him at Bergenheim@PBN.com.
