Arclight buys 584MW New England hydro portfolio

Great River Hydro, an Arclight Capital Partners subsidiary, has purchased TransCanada's 584MW New England hydroelectric portfolio.

The 13 facilities are located on the Connecticut and Deerfield rivers in Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. The portfolio includes the largest conventional hydro station in New England, the 192MW Moore facility, and 12 other assets generating a combined 392MW. The transaction is expected to close in mid-2017.

Scott Hall, a portfolio executive who's been with Arclight for 27 years, will lead the Great River Hydro subsidiary. Arclight said in a statement that Hall has been “directly responsible for all facets of hydroelectric company operations”. The company said it plans to retain existing operational personnel, assume the recently negotiated union contract and continue the relicensing process underway for some of the facilities.

Arclight is an energy investment firm based in Boston which has been investing in New England hydroelectric facilities for about a decade. Prior to this deal, it had acquired and operated 10 facilities along the Penobscot, Union and Androscoggin rivers in Maine.

The firm was founded in 2001 and has since invested $17 billion in energy infrastructure. Last week, two midstream oil companies it holds stakes in, American Midstream Partners and JP Energy Partners, agreed to a $2 billion merger.