BlackRock Real Assets has raised €650m for its Renewable Income Europe fund.

Twenty-five institutional investors in Europe and Asia backed the fund.

BlackRock said it had initially targeted a €500m raise for the vehicle, which has a 20-year buy-and-hold strategy.

European wind and solar projects in Western Europe are the fund’s main focus. 

Patrick Liedtke, head of BlackRock’s financial institutions group for the EMEA, said that, in an “increasingly volatile market, real asset investments are ideally suited to institutions that have a long time horizon and looking for income-producing assets with inflation-protection and low correlations”.

He added: “Renewable power provides further portfolio diversification by providing varying local drivers of return, such as those derived by wind and solar resource.”

BlackRock raised $275m (€248m) in a first close for the fund in February

The fund has since invested one-quarter of client commitments in nine wind and solar projects across the UK and Ireland.