Shell Energy North America will sell RISEC Holdings — owner of the 609-MW Rhode Island State Energy Center, New England's largest in-state power plant — to Constellation Energy Generation for $715 million, while separately buying 169 MW of gas-fired capacity in Pennsylvania. Both deals need regulatory approval and are expected to close in the first quarter of 2027. The swap moves Shell deeper into PJM and hands Constellation another New England generating asset.
Shell Energy North America agreed to sell its interests in RISEC Holdings LLC to Constellation Energy Generation LLC for $715 million, handing the buyer the 609-megawatt, two-unit combined-cycle gas plant that serves the New England power market.
"These transactions reflect our dynamic approach to managing our trading portfolio," Andrew Smith, Shell's president of Trading & Supply, said. "We selectively invest in assets that strengthen our market position and create value, while remaining ready to realize value when market conditions present attractive opportunities."
RISEC owns the Rhode Island State Energy Center, the largest electricity plant in its home state. Shell said the sale brings forward returns it had expected to earn through longer-term ownership and produces a significant gain on the disposal. SENA has held an energy conversion agreement covering the plant's full electricity output since 2019; that contract terminates when the deal closes.
The same announcement carried the opposite trade. Shell will acquire 100 percent of Hunlock Creek Generating LLC from Riverview Power Holdings LLC, an indirect subsidiary of Castleton Commodities International LLC. Hunlock holds 169 megawatts of gas-fired capacity in Pennsylvania — a 125-MW two-unit combined-cycle plant and a 44-MW simple-cycle peaker — moving Shell deeper into PJM Interconnection, the largest US wholesale power market, which coordinates electricity across 13 states and the District of Columbia for more than 65 million people.
Both transactions require regulatory approvals and are expected to close in the first quarter of 2027. Shell said the Hunlock purchase is projected to exceed the return thresholds it set for its power business at its 2025 Capital Markets Day.
The pair of deals leaves Shell with physical generation in PJM and cash from New England, a swap that fits the asset-backed trading model SENA has run for more than 25 years. The unit records more than 210 million megawatt-hours of annual wholesale and retail power sales across North America, and Shell has said it wants flexible gas plants and battery storage in markets where its trading, optimization and risk-management desks can extract value from dispatch decisions.
For Constellation, the purchase adds a 609-MW combined-cycle unit to a New England fleet already anchored by nuclear and gas generation, tightening its grip on in-state Rhode Island capacity. Constellation has spent recent years buying generation rather than building it, and the RISEC deal extends that pattern into a market where transmission constraints and retiring plants have kept capacity values elevated.
Shell's wider US footprint spans roughly 377,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day of production, 10 deep-water hubs in the Gulf of America, about 3,400 miles of active pipelines and a 12,000-station retail network. Its power-adjacent holdings include Savion, a Kansas City solar developer, battery maker sonnen, and a stake in Silicon Ranch.
The divestiture gives Shell capital to redeploy toward the flexible generation and storage assets it has flagged as priorities, while Constellation absorbs an operating plant with an existing offtake arrangement that expires at closing. Investors will watch the regulatory review for both deals ahead of the first-quarter 2027 close, and Shell's next Capital Markets Day for any revision to the return hurdles governing its power business.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
