Huge Investment in Australian Renewable Projects

Another success story from Down Under: On behalf of its clients, Swiss investment manager Partners Group will drive forward Australia's energy transition investing 700 million dollars in a local platform for renewable energies. The new company will be called Grassroots Renewable Energy Platform ('Grassroots') and will build 1.3 GW of wind, solar and battery storage facilities throughout the country over the next four years.

The first project to be completed by October 2018 is the 270 MW Sapphire wind farm, which will supply 110,000 Australian households with electricity and offset over 600,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions per year. To realize the projects, the Partners Group has partnered with CWP Renewables in 2016, also an investor in 'Grassroots'.

Next project will be 135 MW Crudine Ridge wind farm near Mudgee in New South Wales. Construction work has started in May 2018 and will be completed by September 2019. The Crudine Ridge wind farm will consist of 37 GE 3.63 MW turbines and, once operational, will feed an additional 400 GWh of electricity per year into the grid, enough to supply 55,000 households.

In addition to these two wind farms, further projects are planned; the portfolio will include a combination of wind, solar and battery storage.

Benjamin Haan, Partner, Head Private Infrastructure Asia-Pacific, Partners Group, states: "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. We look forward to working with the CWP team to further support the generation of clean energy in Australia."