Schroders Greencoat has launched a new semi-liquid energy transition fund to support renewable technologies including solar, battery storage, and more.
Greencoat, which is the renewable and energy transition infrastructure manager of UK-headquartered asset management giant Schroders, has assets under management (AUM) worth $1.4 billion (£1.1 billion) across a number of geographies including the UK, Europe and the US.
Schroders Capital Semi-Liquid Energy Transition Fund’s structure allows funds the chance to invest in long-term illiquid infrastructure projects. Semi-liquid funds invest in private equity, with investors committing their capital at the time of subscription. In doing so, this offers “greater flexibility and operational simplicity to investors,” Schroders said.
The firm stated that the Article 9 Fund will make investments into what it calls the “backbone of the energy transition” and includes large-scale wind farms and solar parks. Alongside this, it will also target other infrastructure contributing to the energy transition such as clean hydrogen, battery storage, district heating, charging infrastructure, power grids and carbon capture technology.
All of these areas are set to benefit from this additional private investment. Power grids, for example, have been the subject of increasing calls from industry to bolster their capacity to ensure grids are able to cope with the growing scale of renewable energy set to be transmitted across them.
For the UK, National Grid ESO has previously said that developing a grid sufficient for net zero by 2030 could be a £54 billion undertaking.
Duncan Hale, portfolio manager at Schroders Greencoat, commented: “The energy transition represents one of the largest and most relevant investment themes impacting clients’ portfolios and, as a result, it’s an exciting and attractive time to be accessing these types of investments.
“This fund highlights our commitment to expanding access to private assets and generating positive returns for our clients through directly allocating to energy transition infrastructure.
This article first appeared on Solar Power Portal’s sister site Current±.
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