EE Group, a German renewable energy asset manager, has announced a €500m fund dedicated to repowering ageing wind and solar farms.
The new Article 9 fund, CEE RF9, will integrate 39 solar PV and onshore wind farms from the company’s RF1, RF2, and RF3 portfolios, aiming to enhance efficiency and electricity production.
By replacing older turbines and solar panels with modern equipment, the project could triple electricity generation. The RF9 portfolio includes 457 MWp of installed capacity across 23 solar and 16 wind farms in Germany and France, with an average asset age of 13 years.
Repowering efforts, expected to conclude between 2027 and 2030, will boost total capacity to 1.1 GWp. Existing feed-in tariffs will largely remain intact, and current infrastructure, such as grid connections, will be reused.
CEE reported that its RF1, RF2, and RF3 funds achieved project-level internal rates of return (IRR) between 10% and 12%, with approximately 85% of legacy investors reinvesting in RF9. The target IRR for the new fund is 10% in the base-case scenario.
Detlef Schreiber, CEO of the CEE Group, says:
“The installed capacity of renewable energy generation in Germany and Europe in the 2000s and 2010s is getting outdated – but it is proven to be one of the most productive and established generation sites.
Premature repowering can also be very attractive here – as a win-win for the energy transition and for investors interested in long-term returns.”
