Babcock & Brown Ltd (B&B)has sold wind farm assets held by B&B Wind Partners in Portugal for $2.23 billion. The assets were sold to a consortium of investors led by Magnum Capital. B&B said it would earn $285.82 million in net proceeds from the sale of its 50% share of the portfolio. This represents a price above book value and will be used to pay down project debt secured against European wind assets, it added.

AS BABCOCK & Brown Wind Partners battles lower earnings and poor investor sentiment, it has emerged that the chief executive, Peter O'Connell, has sold his entire stake in the company. In early August the specialist wind energy company surprised the stockmarket with a profit warning after what it described as "particularly unusually [sic] low wind conditions in May and June". Its securities slumped to a record low of $1.25 in response.

A CONTRITE Peter O'Connell has promised to this week buy back the securities he sold in Babcock & Brown Wind Partners about two months ago. "I'm definitely buying back," the chief executive of Babcock & Brown Wind told the Herald last night. "I genuinely have a great interest in the stock."

A range of turbines have been withdrawn from sale after a recent study revealed they do not work as effectively as first thought. The £1,900 micro-turbines, which went on sale across the DIY chain B&Q's 320 stores in October 2006, claimed to generate 1kw of electricity, when wired directly into a main ring, reducing the amount of power a household would need to buy. ...B&Q is reported to have sold hundreds of the wind turbines since their launch last year.

Experts suggest as many as 200 proposals could result from a call for clean energy projects issued last June by B.C. Hydro, the province's Crown-owned power utility. Energy proponents have until Nov. 25 to register their plans with the utility. The Crown corporation will announce its choices in June 2009. ..."The dilemma with this field is there is a lot of hyperbole and a lot of dramatic positioning driven sometimes by very real ecological concerns, sometimes by other factors," he said. Dauncey said the power issue in British Columbia has always been locked in an environmental debate between builders and preservationists.

When B.C. voters go to the polls next Tuesday, they will not only choose a new government, but also decide the fate of an entire industry in the province - private power production. The New Democratic Party, running neck-and-neck with the incumbent Liberals, wants to return B.C.'s focus to public power and is vowing to slap a moratorium on private production, hitting developers working on wind power and run-of-river projects. A Liberal win would spell a big victory for upstart power producers.

When the 50-turbine Dokie wind farm just outside Chetwynd is up and running next year, it will be B.C.'s first commercial wind power project, making the province the last in Canada to have such a power project. A farm near Dawson Creek, B.C., called the Bear Mountain project is also scheduled to start generating power next year, and there are many other prospective sites being considered. ...And a group of homeowners near Bear Mountain has been rallying against the project there, insisting the wind farm will be too close to people.

Bats may never find wind farms as friendly as belfries, but a three-month study in northeast British Columbia is designed to make the power-generating turbines at least somewhat less deadly. Monitoring devices installed by AltaGas at the site of the proposed Bear Mountain Wind Farm have been recording data on the population and migratory routes of bats in the area since July. In later stages of development, the research is intended to help how the company can make its turbines to more bat-friendly.

The B.C. government has given environmental approval for what would be Canada's first offshore wind farm. The Naikun Wind Project was told Thursday it had cleared the major environmental hurdle for its plan to build 110 electricity-generating windmills in the Hecate Strait, off the Queen Charlotte Islands.

A promise to unwind gearing and undertake a full review of operations might be sufficient to let Babcock & Brown off the hook with its bankers. It is now looking as if the beleaguered company might have done enough to prevent a formal review being called on its $2.8 billion corporate facility from its bankers. A decision on whether the syndicate of 25 banks initiates a formal review, prompted after Babcock's market capitalisation fell through the facility's $2.5 billion value trigger, is expected within the next two weeks. But it is now looking more likely that this process could be expedited, with an announcement made possibly this week. ...It is understood that assets on the Babcock balance sheet -- predominantly wind farm assets and some infrastructure assets -- might also be sold.

Babcock & Brown said that a federal court in Texas dismissed a lawsuit, clearing a path for the company to continue its plans for a wind farm on the Texas Gulf Coast. The Coastal Habitat Alliance filed suits related to the construction of two separate wind energy generation facilities, including the Babcock & Brown facility, in December 2007. The federal suit challenged the state's decision to allow the developments to be built without required environmental review and public comment and sought possible injunction against the Texas Land Commissioner, the commission and the developers of the two wind farms, PPM Energy and Babcock and Brown.

Investment firm Babcock & Brown says it is in dispute with a bank which holds a deposit of a material amount relating to the release of that deposit. Babcock requested a trading halt in its shares today, saying it expected the halt to remain until the dispute was resolved. The owner of wind farms and properties has lost 99% of its market value this year as it struggles to sell assets to repay $3.1 billion in loans.

The company proposed several options to Manitoba Hydro to produce up to 300 megawatts of wind power, said Adam Macdonald, head of Babcock & Brown's energy development in Canada. The project could involve capital costs of more than C$600 million ($582.5 million), Manitoba Hydro said, and could generate enough power for about 90,000 homes. The proposed site at St. Joseph, south of the provincial capital of Winnipeg, would be the first wind farm in Canada for Babcock & Brown, and could be one of the largest in the country.

A unit of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Japan's largest heavy-machinery maker, sued partner Babcock & Brown Infrastructure Group US LLC seeking payments under wind-turbine contracts worth $US1.4 billion ($1.9 billion).

Babcock & Brown, the Australian infrastructure investor, is planning to sell its European wind farms in a deal that could be worth between €3.5bn ($5.5bn) and €4bn. The group will say Monday that it has appointed Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan to sell its European wind energy assets and those owned by Babcock & Brown Wind Partners, its quoted wind energy fund. These include wind farms in Spain, Portugal, Germany, Italy and France. Babcock & Brown Wind Partners owns about 3,000MW of wind generation capacity worldwide, with just over 800MW of this in Europe. But the group said last month that the market had not recognised the value of its European assets, and it would look at selling them. The wind energy sector is attracting strong investor interest, and European wind businesses have been changing hands at high prices.

The chairman and chief executive of Australian investment group Babcock & Brown, which holds a 23% stake in Forth Ports, both quit yesterday amid the group's continuing financial troubles. Long-serving chief executive Phil Green and chairman James Babcock, who founded the company in 1977, have stepped aside from their roles at the troubled asset management and advisory company.

Babcock & Brown Wind Partners Group (BBW) shareholders have approved the company's name change, finalising its separation from its troubled parent. At an extraordinary general meeting on Wednesday, shareholders approved a motion for the company to become known as Infigen Energy. Infigen is derived from the words infinite and generation.

The Crescent Ridge acquisition would provide BBW with two revenue sources. In the first instance, 100% of the energy generated by the wind farm will be sold into the PJM wholesale power pool. BBW said the second revenue source would comprise of 100% of renewable energy certificates (“RECs”), which would also be sold throughout the PJM power market and transported into adjacent service territories, such as the New York market, for sale.

Babcock & Brown Wind Partners, Australia's largest wind power producer, has ended its management accord with B&B for $40 million. The payout includes an upfront $35 million for the former parent, which still holds an 11 per cent stake in the company, and $5 million payable on June 30. The group is one of several Babcock & Brown satellite funds that are distancing themselves from their former parent by changing their name and ending management agreements.

Australian-based Babcock and Brown is looking for a buyer for its Kenedy County wind farm ...The company announced in February its plans to sell Gulf Wind, saying it will sell its assets over a two- to three-year period to reduce the company's debt level.