DRIZA Green Partners is currently seeking investors for hundreds of megawatts of wind development opportunities in Spain and anticipates a close on the transaction this quarter, Isabel Álvarez, the developer’s new business development and commercial director, told NPM in an interview.

Álvarez did not disclose the exact capacity available but said that DRIZA is speaking to multiple investors at the moment. “We don’t want to close any agreement with less than 300 MW…at least one investor per 300 MW,” she said.

DRIZA views 300 MW-plus as the optimal size to balance risks and compensate for work carried out, Álvarez said.

She added that the developer would likely close with one or two investors but no more, noting that one potential investor is interested in acquiring more than 300 MW.

Founded in 2021, renewable energy developer DRIZA’s business model is to continuously analyse connection capacity that will become available through Spain’s grid operator to discover opportunities. After initial screening around wind resources, environmental protected areas, and competence it then seeks a project investor to allow it to progress development.

Álvarez said: “The formula that we are using is that the main investor acquires more or less 65%, and we keep the other 35% of the project. For DRIZA the idea is to sell its 35% when the project reaches ready-to-build.”

This is preferable for DRIZA as a small company to avoid high capex costs. Álvarez noted that construction costs for wind projects in Spain are currently around EUR 1.2m / MW to EUR 1.3 / MW.

“Maybe the main investors will keep the whole project, or maybe…[both] the main investor and DRIZA will sell the whole project [at RTB] – we don’t know. It will depend on the investor.”

Existing investors in DRIZA’s development projects currently include electricity companies, international IPPs and other international investors, and family offices.

With six investors, the developer currently has around 2 GW of projects that have been granted access and connection permits in Spain, focused in Andalucía, Castilla y León, and Galicia. The projects are all wind, though there is a “little bit” of hybridisation with solar.

DRIZA expects responses to the environmental permits for these projects between midway through 2025 and March 2026. After receiving the environmental permits, Álvarez expects that the projects will reach ready to build around three years later.

Development hurdles

As DRIZA anticipates its environmental permits in the near future, Álvarez highlighted that this development stage currently poses a hurdle for projects. She said that this difficulty is due to an increasing number of environmentally sensitive sites, such as national protected areas and local protected areas for animals and trees.

“It’s not as easy as [in] the beginning. Every time you have more protected areas…so right now I will say this is the toughest thing to get,” Álvarez said.

Land acquisition is also a struggle. According to Álvarez, this stems from the terms of Spain’s renewables auction, which requires that applicants have secured land.

This has made acquiring land more difficult because “there are a lot of companies that closed on land over the last years without having permits for a project,” she added.

Another difficulty that developers in Spain are facing is the permitting process, due to delays on the administration’s part. This has made it difficult for developers to progress through development milestones in a timely manner to finish projects in line with Spain’s deadlines.

The Spanish government decreed in 2020 that projects which had secured access and connection permits would have five years to progress through permitting authorisation processes, and enter operation.

However, recognising administrator delays, in December 2023 the government offered a three year extension to developments that had been granted access and connection permits over the prior five years to allow developers a chance at completing their projects.

Álvarez did not discuss any specific moves the administration is taking to directly improve the efficiency of progress through milestones, but noted it is trying to do so. She concluded that if it does not, Spain will fail to achieve its 2030 targets.

*This story was originally published exclusively for NPM Europe subscribers.

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