Japan’s electric utility JERA has signed a definitive agreement with Virya Energy to acquire 100% of the shares of Parkwind, Virya’s offshore wind energy platform, for €1.55 billion (~$1.7 billion).

The companies will explore the possibility for Virya to re-invest in a minority stake in Parkwind’s Belgian wind farms and discuss collaboration on future opportunities in Belgium.

JERA is a 50-50 joint venture between Tokyo Electric Power Company’s wholly-owned subsidiary, TEPCO Fuel & Power, and Chubu Electric Power. It has a 2 GW renewable energy portfolio and operates projects in Taiwan, the United States, Japan, India, and Vietnam.

Virya Energy owns and operates over 1 GW of renewable energy generation capacity worldwide. Parkwind currently operates four offshore wind projects in Belgium with a combined capacity of 771 MW.

Parkwind is in the process of constructing the Arcardis Ost project in Germany with a capacity of 257 MW. It has a 4.5 GW capacity of offshore wind projects in Europe and beyond in pipeline.

JERA is also committed to funding the long-term growth of Parkwind and supporting its domestic and international expansion plan following the completion of the transaction.

“We are looking forward to benefiting from JERA’s global experience and capabilities to take the company to the next level in terms of growth and expansion potential, with a renewed commitment to be a leading enabler of the energy transition in an environmentally and socially responsible manner. We see a clear alignment on business and people culture between Parkwind and JERA and are convinced that this will allow us to boost the value creation for our future shareholder, our windfarms, our partners, our talented teams and our planet,” said Eric Antoons and François Van Leeuw, co-CEOs, Parkwind.

The European Commission approved €2.08 billion (~$2.2 million) in funding to support offshore wind projects to help the EU meet the objectives under its Offshore Renewable Energy Storage and the European Green Deal.

The European Commission unveiled a strategy to help achieve the EU’s climate neutrality target by 2050. The plan suggested increasing Europe’s offshore wind capacity up to 60 GW by 2030 and 300 GW by 2050 from its existing capacity of 12 GW.