By Andres Gonzalez
LONDON (Reuters) -Spanish power company Iberdrola (BME:IBE) is looking to sell its onshore wind farms in Romania and Hungary as part of a strategy to raise cash to fund more lucrative renewable energy projects, two sources told Reuters.
The sale is worth up to 300 million euros, the sources said.
Iberdrola is selling fully operational assets to investors with a lower cost of capital in order to finance the development of new renewable projects and grids in its main markets Britain, the United States, Spain and Brazil.
The sale is expected to kick off in the coming weeks and include six wind facilities in Hungary and Romania with an overall generating capacity of 238 megawatts, the sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
An Iberdrola spokesperson declined to comment.
Iberdrola has been an active trader of renewable energy assets in Europe and recently sold a 49% stake in its German offshore site Wikinger to Energy Infrastructure Partners (EIP) for 700 million euros.
Separately, it launched a process in September to sell a minority stake in a 1.2 gigawatt portfolio of renewable assets in Spain, two separate sources close to the deal said.
The Spanish utility announced an ambitious plan in 2020 to invest up to 150 billion euros until 2030, mostly in costly offshore wind farms and power grids.
The company said in July that it had invested 10.2 billion euros, mainly in the U.S., Spain, Brazil and United Kingdom, in the previous 12 months.
The high level of investment is increasing its net debt, which will reach between 45 and 46 billion euros this year. The figure does not include any asset disposals, Chief Financial Officer Jose Sainz said in July.
Iberdrola is expected to set a new global target for buying and selling assets at an investor day in November, adding to a target of $2 billion announced recently by its U.S. unit Avangrid, one of the sources said.
($1 = 1.0317 euros)