Canberra, 22 February 2023 – Infradebt is pleased to announce the first close of the Infradebt Energy Transition Fund (ETF). ETF is a new fund dedicated to financing grid scale battery projects in Australia. The fund will provide senior debt finance to 6-8 battery projects with a total capacity of 1.5-2GW over the next few years. That is, the equivalent dispatchable capacity, spread over a number of projects, to a large coal fired power station. In our view, accelerating the development of dispatchable capacity – able to help match the inevitable variations of renewable energy supply and household and commercial demand – is critical to the decarbonisation of the grid.
The ETF’s first two investments are loans to the Neon Capital Battery and Genex’s Bouldercombe BESS. The Neoen Capital Battery is a 100MW/200MWh battery project located on the outskirts of Canberra. Infradebt has provided a senior debt facility alongside the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. The Genex Bouldercombe BESS is a 50MW/100MWh project located approximately 20km southwest of Rockhampton in Queensland. Both projects are currently under construction and are expected to begin operations in 2023. Infradebt managed funds are the sole financer for the Bouldercombe BESS.
Initial investors include capital from Grok Ventures, the JANA Diversified Infrastructure Trust as well as a number of existing family office clients of Infradebt. Infradebt thanks these investors for their support of ETF.
Infradebt is a specialist infrastructure project finance fund manager/financier. Infradebt is active in the renewable energy/decarbonising real assets space, having financed 43 projects since inception. In addition to ETF, Infradebt is also the manager of the Infradebt Ethical Fund – Australia’s first ethically screened infrastructure debt fund.
Quote attributable to Alexander Austin, CEO of Infradebt
“Infradebt is extremely pleased to have reached this important milestone for the Energy Transition Fund. Grid scale batteries, and energy storage more generally, is a key element to facilitating the orderly and rapid decarbonisation of the grid. Decarbonisation requires the rapid buildout of wind and solar and dispatchable grid scale storage to allow the matching of supply and demand on a 24x7x365 basis. ETF will play a role in providing finance to allow a more rapid roll out of battery projects.”
Jeremy Kwong-Law, CEO and CIO of Grok Ventures said:
“Since investing in Infradebt Ethical Fund back in 2017, we’ve closely observed Infradebt identifying gaps in the capital stack to accelerate Australia’s decarbonisation efforts, whilst providing solid risk adjusted returns. We believe ETF will be another fund to deliver returns and accelerate decarbonisation of our grid.”
About Infradebt
Infradebt is a specialist fund manager providing clients with direct access to infrastructure private debt markets. Infrastructure debt benefits from the stable and secure revenue streams inherent in the asset class. There is a natural alignment between long-term investment horizons of superannuation funds and the borrowing needs of infrastructure projects.
Infradebt has an experienced team with decades of global infrastructure investment experience. We have invested across the capital structure and through market cycles. As an independent manager owned by its senior staff, our interests are aligned with the long-term returns we deliver for our investors. Our focus is simple, we deliver secure yield.
More information on Infradebt is available at www.infradebt.com.au
For further information contact Alexander Austin at alexander.austin@infradebt.com.au or 0414 507 505.
Construction of the Genex Bouldercombe Battery
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