April 20, 2016
New Hampshire

Walden buys out Eolian

By ASHLEY SAARI | Monadnock Ledger-Transcript | Wednesday, April 20, 2016 | www.ledgertranscript.com

Eolian Renewable Energy, the parent company of Antrim Wind, has been bought out and merged with its partner Walden Green Energy.

Eolian, through its subsidiary Antrim Wind Energy, has been proposing a nine-turbine wind farm on Tuttle Hill and Willard Mountain for several years now.

Already having been turned down once by the state’s Site Evaluation Committee, the company is now trying again with a revised project plan that reduced the amount of turbines by one, shortened another, and offered additional mitigations.

In the midst of their second SEC process, the company has announced that its partner in the Antrim project – as well as several others – the New York-based Walden Green.

“It was a pretty natural step for us,” said Jack Kenworthy, the former CEO of Eolian, who has now joined Walden Green as the head of development. “We have been doing a lot of work with Walden, and it was a natural merger.”

Eolian partnered with Walden Green in February of 2015, after the first round of SEC hearings and the ultimate denial, and Antrim Wind became a jointly owned venture between the two companies.

At that point, Walden Green was the majority and controlling shareholder of Antrim Wind. However, as of early March, Walden Green has become the sole owner, absorbing Eolian into its own company.

As for the future of the Antrim Wind project, it will remain fundamentally unchanged, said Kenworthy. Kenworthy, along with John Soininen, who have been the major leaders of the Antrim Wind project, will remain with Walden Green and continue to spearhead the process through the Site Evaluation Committee.

Though the company has filed the necessary paperwork to reflect the change in ownership with the Site Evaluation Committee, the fundamentals of the application – the amount of towers, megawatts, locations and so forth, will remain unchanged, said Kenworthy, who is now Walden Green’s head of development and remains an executive officer of Antrim Wind Energy.

Henry D. Weitzner, a co-founder of Walden commented: “It was a natural step for both companies to make the acquisition happen at this point,” said Henry D. Weitzner, a co-founder of Walden Green.

“We are pleased to have Jack Kenworthy and John Soininen join our team – they bring significant technical expertise and great strength in community engagement and complex problem solving to the Walden team.”

Walden Green Energy is a global renewable energy firm based in New York City, founded by Weitzner, Sarah Valdovinos and George Manahilov and backed by RWE Supply & Trading, the energy trading arm of Germany-based RWE – one of Europe’s top five electric and gas utilities. Walden’s portfolio consists of wind, solar, hydro and “waste-to-energy” projects.

Walden will continue to operate primarily from their New York offices and will also open a new office at the Portsmouth, New Hampshire offices of Eolian.


URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2016/04/20/walden-buys-out-eolian/