Brookfield buys £1.75bn stake in Orsted’s UK offshore wind farms

Brookfield, chaired by former Bank of England governor Mark Carney, has acquired a 12.45% stake in four UK offshore wind farms owned by Orsted for £1.75 billion ($2.3 billion).

This significant deal includes the world’s largest single offshore wind farm, Hornsea 2, located 55 miles off the Yorkshire coast with a capacity of 1.32 gigawatts—enough to power approximately 1.4 million homes.

This acquisition represents about 20% of the £8.75 billion disposal target set by Orsted for 2026, a strategy to reduce costs and reinforce its balance sheet amid rising interest rates and supply chain challenges affecting the sector’s profitability. Orsted operates over 5GW of offshore wind capacity, with an additional 5GW under construction, including Hornsea 3 and 4. The latter projects recently secured contracts in the UK’s clean power auction, for which the government boosted the budget to £1.5 billion to drive renewable investments.

Connor Teskey, CEO of Brookfield Renewables, stated that UK offshore wind assets are “a critical part of the energy mix,” echoing Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s assertion that this deal is a “huge vote of confidence in the UK’s clean energy sector.” Since Labour’s July election win, the government has prioritised net zero targets by 2050, increasing support for renewables and launching Great British Energy with £8.3 billion in taxpayer backing.

For Brookfield, this acquisition builds on its recent foray into the UK wind market following its purchase of Banks Renewables, rebranded as OnPath, which operates 11 onshore wind farms across the UK. This marks Brookfield’s first UK offshore wind venture, adding to its 11.1GW global wind capacity, more than half of which is in North America.

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Brookfield buys £1.75bn stake in Orsted’s UK offshore wind farms