Iberdrola to invest $39.4 billion by 2022, focuses on networks and renewables

Source: By Anmar Frangoul, CNBC • Posted: Monday, February 26, 2018

Spanish utility Iberdrola is to invest 32 billion euros ($39.42 billion) over the next four years, the business announced Wednesday.

Breaking the figures down, 15.5 billion euros will be invested in networks, 11.5 billion in renewables and 2.8 billion in generation and retail. Around 1.4 billion euros will be set aside for contracted generation.

“We are the largest producer of wind worldwide, so we are expecting to increase our total power generation capacity by 7,000 megawatts,” Iberdrola Chairman Ignacio Galan told CNBC. The U.S. would be the main driver of this growth, he added.

In January, sportswear giant Nike announced it had signed its second major wind power agreement with Avangrid Renewables, a subsidiary of energy and utility business Avangrid and part of the Iberdrola Group. That deal was for 86 megawatts of wind power from the Karankawa Wind Farm in Bee and San Patricio counties in Texas.

Under Nike’s other agreement with Avangrid Renewables, three wind farms deliver renewable energy to the company’s global headquarters in Oregon as well as almost all of its Oregon-based sites.

Announcing earnings for 2017, Iberdrola said that it posted a net profit of 2.804 billion euros. Net investments hit 5.891 billion euros, while the business’ U.S. subsidiary, Avangrid, saw its adjusted net income rise 6 percent, to $682 million.