Portugal's EDPR to invest $22.34 billion until 2026, push green growth

LISBON, March 2 (Reuters) - Portugal's EDP Renovaveis (EDPR) on Thursday announced plans to invest around 21 billion euros ($22.34 billion) to deploy 17 gigawatts (GW) of new renewable capacity until 2026 and said it had chosen Singapore's sovereign wealth fund GIC to partially fund the move.

EDPR - the world's fourth-largest renewable energy producer - said in a statement that it intends to raise equity through a capital increase of 1 billion euros to fund part of the investment, "subject to corporate approvals and favourable market conditions being met".

It said that Lisson Grove Investment, an affiliate of GIC, has committed to subscribe the capital increase at a price between 19.25 euros and 20.50 euros per share. The definitive price will be set when the operation is launched.

EDPR shares closed on Wednesday at 19.34 euros.

EDPR has been sounding out investors, including sovereign wealth funds, to take a stake in the company to help finance its push for green growth, two people familiar with the talks had told Reuters on Tuesday.

As of December, EDPR had an installed capacity of 14.7 GW.

In a separate statement, EDPR's parent company Energias de Portugal (EDP) announced that it also intends to undertake a capital increase worth 1 billion euros to buy the 44% that it does not control in its subsidiary EDP Brasil .

EDP said it agreed with its largest shareholder, China Three Gorges, as well as with Lisson Grove Investment and with an affiliate of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, to jointly subscribe up to 600 million euros of the capital increase.

The final price is yet to be determined, it said.

China Three Gorges owns 21% of EDP, which is Portugal's largest utility, and the two companies have had a strategic partnership since 2011.

($1 = 0.9399 euros) (Reporting by Sergio Goncalves; Editing by David Latona & Shri Navaratnam)