Ancala's Croatian Biomass Platform has acquired three 5MW biomass power plants from Croatian wood trading business The Sherif Group, more than doubling its renewable generation capacity to 25MW.
The deal brings the platform's total portfolio to five sites across Croatia, with a combined annual output of approximately 200,000MWh of renewable electricity, which is enough to power around 45,000 homes per year.
The platform's existing plants are located in Gospić and Grubišno Polje; the three newly acquired sites are in Glina, Karlovac and Brinje, in Croatia's highlands and central regions. The plants have been operating since 2017, 2020 and 2021 respectively.
All three sites benefit from long-term feed-in tariffs and biomass supply agreements in line with those already in place across the platform. The plants use low-grade forestry biomass sourced from local suppliers and will continue to be operated by their existing teams, reporting to platform chief executive Laurent Sessa.
The platform has also appointed Tihana Stupnisek as chief financial officer to support its expansion. Stupnisek was previously chief executive of Euro Cable Group, a manufacturer of low-voltage electrical cables in Central and Eastern Europe.
Ancala said it is working with the management team to optimise operations, develop commercial and operational synergies across the portfolio, and explore further capacity increases. The transaction also provided a co-investment opportunity for Ancala's institutional investor base.
The acquisition is the 24th bolt-on deal Ancala has enabled across its portfolio since the infrastructure manager began investing in energy transition and renewables, having deployed more than €1bn in the sector to date. Financial terms were not disclosed.
