HIH Invest acquires wind farm in North Rhine-Westphalia

HIH Invest Real Estate (“HIH Invest”) just acquired the Windpark Belle wind farm near Steinheim in the north-eastern part of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The 25-Megawatt wind farm consists of five wind turbines made by the company ENERCON. All of the plants were completed and connected to the electricity grid by June 2023, and are already operating. The acquisition was completed on behalf of the HIH Green Energy Invest fund. Seller is the German company Energiequelle, which developed the wind farm and handled its construction as general contractor. Today, Energiequelle counts among Germany’s biggest service providers for renewable energies, and will keep managing the wind farm in the future.

HIH Green Energy Invest is an investment fund that applies a strategy pursuant to Article 9, Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (EU), and focuses on photovoltaics and wind power plants. The fund volume in the amount of 750 million euros is being invested in existing plants and in projects ready for construction. Primary target countries are Germany, France, Italy and Spain. However, the fund will also consider investments in the BeNeLux countries, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Poland, Portugal, and the Nordics.

“We acquired Windpark Belle to supplement the portfolio of our HIH Green Energy Invest impact fund. It gives our institutional investors the chance to expand their commitments in the area of renewable energies and thereby to help bring about the energy transition. Aside from these sustainability aspects, this asset contributes 7 percent return on investment to our funds, so that it is also a rather lucrative investment,” commented Alexander Eggert, Managing Director of HIH Invest.

Kristof Krull, Head of Infrastructure at HIH Invest, added: “The Windpark Belle wind farm will generate attractive revenues via the direct marketing of the produced energy, an approach that is secured by a government-guaranteed feed-in tariff over an operating period of 20 years. This enables us to ensure stable long-term earnings for the HIH Green Energy Invest fund.”

Legal advice for the transaction was provided by the Vesthaus law firm in Hamburg, while RSM Ebner Stolz mbH, also based in Hamburg, handled the fiscal due diligence. Responsible for the technical due diligence was the company renerco plan consult GmbH in Munich.