Aviva Investors and energy infrastructure specialist Astatine have formed an €800m investment venture to support decarbonisation efforts in Europe’s heavy industry and hard-to-abate sectors.
Aviva Investors will serve as the majority owner and financial backer of the platform, while Astatine will lead on project development, design, delivery and ongoing operation and maintenance.
The firms said the newly created platform, seeded with a 128MW portfolio of assets, will focus on energy infrastructure projects in the power, heat and transport sectors.
The investment will include acquiring, building and operating a range of assets, including solar photovoltaic and battery storage, alongside industrial decarbonisation solutions such as heat pumps, heat recovery and electric vehicle charging systems for both fleets and heavy goods vehicles.
The platform’s seed portfolio is expected to be operational within the next two years, with a further 500MW-plus of pipeline opportunities.
The companies said the venture’s investment focus will mainly be in Ireland, and extending into the UK and continental Europe.
Angenika Kunne, head of infrastructure equity at Aviva Investors, said: “This platform is a truly innovative means of providing large energy users in hard-to-abate industries with a dedicated single partner which can provide access to a range of technologies, helping them to decarbonise their production processes.
“These energy sources are economical, resilient to fluctuating prices suffered by traditional energy sources and can help whole sectors manage their energy transition journey in a cost-effective way. This is a key component for companies looking to cut energy costs and improve economic competitiveness.”
Tom Marren, CEO and co-founder of Astatine, said: “By combining Aviva Investors’ financial strength with our development expertise, we can accelerate the delivery of projects to assist with increasing competitiveness for Europe’s industrial base.
“And while there is very much a UK and broader European scope to projects that will come under the remit of the platform, we envisage a strong pipeline of eligible projects here, right across the island of Ireland as we are seeing very strong growth in some of the key targeted sectors such as data centres, food and beverage, dairy, life sciences, pharmaceuticals, cement and general manufacturing.”
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