Partners Group to invest AUD700m in Australian renewable energy platform

Partners Group is investing a total of AUD700m (€456.4m) in the development of a large-scale renewable energy platform in Australia on behalf of its clients.

The Swiss multi-asset manager has once again teamed up with local developer CWP Renewables to develop a project known as Grassroots Renewable Energy Platform. CWP is also an investor in the project.

Grassroots will be seeded with the 270MW Sapphire Wind Farm project and will, in addition, construct over 1.3GW of new wind power, solar power and battery storage assets across Australia within the next four years.

Partners Group first joined forces with CWP in 2016 when it announced an AUD250m investment into Sapphire Wind Farm, a 270MW development project located in the state of New South Wales.

Sapphire Wind Farm is due to be completed by October this year. There are also plans to launch a community co-investment project at Sapphire Wind Farm in late 2018.

The second project under the Grassroots platform will be Crudine Ridge Wind Farm, a 135MW construction-ready wind farm near Mudgee in New South Wales. Construction will begin and will be completed by September 2019.

In addition to Crudine Ridge Wind Farm, there are a number of other pipeline projects for Grassroots, which comprise a combination of wind, solar and battery storage assets, Partners Group said.

Benjamin Haan, a partner and head of private infrastructure in Asia-Pacific at Partners Group, said: “When we invested in Sapphire Wind Farm, one of the key attractions for us was the project’s potential to anchor an Australian renewable energy platform.

Partners Group and CWP have a project pipeline of 1.3GW in generation capacity across wind and solar power, offering the scope to be selective and develop Grassroots into a quality renewables platform of significant scale.”

To-date, Partners Group has developed around 2GW of solar and wind energy capacity on behalf of its clients across the Asia-Pacific region, including Australia.