Guy Hands' latest tilt at becoming the king of the windmills ran into trouble today after an offer to take over one of Britain's leading green energy firms was dismissed as a bid being made on the cheap.

Infinis Energy, owned by Hands' private-equity empire Terra Firma and responsible for producing more than 10% of Britain's renewable energy, today made a £90 million cash offer for Aim-listed Novera Energy.

Infinis's offer values Novera's shares at 621⁄2p. This time last year, they were trading at 29p. Infinis said its offer is a 43% premium to where the shares have been on average over the past six months.

Hands' operation has already wheeled into action with a dawn raid snatching 13% of Novera, taking its stake to 42%. However, the board of Novera today held its nerve, telling its shareholder to stand their ground.

“This intended offer significantly undervalues Novera,” the board said in a statement to the Stock Exchange.

Infinis was founded on Hands' acquisition of Waste Recycling Group eight years ago and the subsequent development of WRG's landfill gas interests. Since then it has been expanding its wind interests, notably this summer with a $350 million deal in the US.

In the UK, Infinis currently has 313 megawatts of installed generating plant, enough to power a decent sized city.

Novera — which is a member of the Evening Standard's CleanTech-10 basket of leading green energy stocks — has 46 landfill gas sites, two operating wind farms and 10 small hydroelectric plants with total generating capacity of 148MW. It has several other wind farms currently at the planning approval stage.