Partners Group is planning to invest over $450m (€394m) in PowerTransitions as part of its acquisition of the US utility-scale power developer from EnCap Investments.
Simultaneously with Partners Group’s investment, PowerTransitions will acquire a 226MW seed portfolio of natural gas plants. It has also identified a 3GW pipeline of thermal power assets.
PowerTransitions acquires and redevelops older or retiring thermal power facilities, enhancing or modifying their existing grid connections to co-locate new solar and/or battery energy storage systems.
Ed Diffendal, partner and co-head infrastructure Americas at Partners Group, said: “PowerTransitions will play a critical role in meeting power demand in the US by increasing grid capacity and improving reliability by optimising underutilised points of interconnection.
“We have strong thematic conviction in the company’s strategy of co-locating renewables with legacy power assets and plan to accelerate its growth through expanding its operating asset base while continuing to re-develop non-operating sites.”
Sean Long, CEO of PowerTransitions, said: “Our strategy allows for the avoidance of network upgrade costs and long queues thus shortening development timelines and costs, easing independent system operators’ and regional transmission organisations’ desire to enable new power generation to provide grid reliability. This strategy addresses major roadblocks hindering the matching of rising power demand in the US with clean, reliable and economic power supply.
“We believe aged or retired thermal and industrial sites represent a large, underutilised pool of assets with significant value creation potential and we have identified a robust pipeline of actionable near-term M&A opportunities. We will leverage Partners Group’s significant experience in the power sector to capitalise on this opportunity.”
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