Brookfield to Buy Duke Renewables Unit for $2.8 Billion

US utilities are racing to unload unregulated power assets outside of their home markets after Wall Street began prioritizing slimmed businesses focused on their core territories. Investors now prefer that utilities invest locally, with returns guaranteed by the passage of spending costs to their customers.

“This is in line with utilities focusing their renewable efforts within their regulated operations,” Paul Patterson, an analyst at Glenrock Associates LLC, said in an interview. Utilities will still invest in clean energy, he said, but they’ll do it within their regulated businesses as opposed to as an independent developer.

“We saw a great opportunity to really focus on our clean energy transition in our regulated states,” company spokesperson Jennifer Garber said in a phone interview. “We’re looking at adding about 30,000 megawatts of renewables by 2035.”

Brookfield Renewable is the flagship clean energy company of Brookfield Corporation, a leading global alternative asset manager with over $825 billion of assets under management. It has almost 90 gigawatts of assets, according to the statement.

American Electric Power Co. last year began a sales process for a renewables portfolio. Soon after, Consolidated Edison Inc. agreed to sell a large clean-power portfolio for $6.8 billion.