Dominion Sells US CCGTs to Starwood

US utility Dominion Energy has agreed to sell two combined-cycle gas-fired plants (CCGTs) to private equity firm Starwood, it said September 24. Subject to regulatory approval, it expects to raise $1.23bn – a touch above the midpoint of its $1bn-$1.5bn guidance range. 

The plants are the 1.24-GW Fairless CCGT in Pennsylvania and the 468-MW Manchester Street CCGT in Rhode Island. Dominion is also selling a 25% stake in a hydro-electric planthydro asset sale to an unnamed buyer for $90mn. Both transactions are expected to close by year-end.

Last month Starwood announced the sale of a 50% stake in three northeast US gas-fired power plants to Japanese LNG giant Jera, a recent active buyer of such US assets, but did not disclose the deal value.

Dominion had classed the three interests as "non-core", and it is in the process of buying rival utility South Carolina Electric & Gas Company (part of Scana) which already has 5.8 GW of generation capacity in an all-share deal that was first announced January 3.

An LNG export facility owned by Dominion shipped its first cargo in March 2018, becoming the second such US export facility;  until a decade ago, it was an LNG import terminal used by Equinor.