Partners Group has invested in Bango Wind Farm, the global private markets investment manager’s fifth renewable energy project in Australia.
Partners Group, on behalf of its clients, has invested in the 244MW project in New South Wales, which will be valued at A$500m (€303m) on completion. Construction of the complex is due to start this month, with the facility expected to be operational by mid-2021.
Bango Wind Farm has already secured a 15-year contract with Snowy Hydro for 100MW of its capacity.
To date, Partners Group on behalf of investors has committed around A$1.2bn to renewable energy projects in Australia’s Eastern seaboard.
In May this year, Partners Group formed a platform known as the Grassroots Renewable Energy Platform (GREP) with an Australian group, CWP Renewables, committing to invest A$700 million in equity.
Benjamin Haan, operating partner of Partners Group and chair of GREP, said: “Despite ongoing market challenges related to grid congestion and uncertainty in future green energy policy, there remains a compelling market opportunity for experienced developers and investors in renewable energy in Australia, particularly in New South Wales.”
Andrew Kwok, Partners Group managing director and head of private infrastructure Asia, said the group would deploy its “significant industry expertise and value- creation resources on behalf of clients to build a project pipeline of 1.3GW of wind and solar generation capacity”.
A source told IPE Real Assets that the Grassroots partnership with CWP did not preclude Partners Group from looking at independent standalone renewable energy projects in Australia.
The source said that, as a global investor, Partners Group investments were made on the relative value of individual projects. “The fact that Partners Group, on behalf of our clients, has made five back-to-back investments, committing A$1.2bn of equity into Australian renewables speaks to the strength of this market.”
The Zug-based group first entered the Australian renewable energy market in 2015 when it acquired a majority equity stake into the A$450m Ararat Wind Farm project, in Victoria.
