Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners, a global investment manager specializing in lower carbon and renewable energy infrastructure, has acquired an 84 Megawatt (MW) gas-fired power project portfolio located across 4 sites in England and Wales.
The company plans to invest over $60 million to acquire and construct the projects, which will become revenue-generating over the next twelve months.
This latest investment marks the founder’s return to the United Kingdom’s clean energy infrastructure market and is the maiden investment in Quinbrook’s UK low carbon power platform, the company said.
Quinbrook acquired 100 percent of the fully permitted and construction-ready 84 MW Eider Reserve Power portfolio for £4.6 million and plans to invest a further £40 million (US $53 million) in cash to construct and install the 4 projects, which are ideally located in close proximity to both gas and power grid connections.
Three of the projects have secured 15 year fixed price, inflation escalated capacity contracts. This latest acquisition grows Quinbrook’s investment portfolio to more than US $3 billion of committed and planned projects, diversified across onshore wind, distributed gas, utility scale solar and flexible peak power generation in the US, UK and Australia, the company added.
According to Energy UK, the trade association for the nation’s energy industry, renewables already produce more than 20 percent of the UK’s electricity. That figure is expected to increase to 30 percent by 2020 and will continue to be dominated by intermittent renewable sources such as wind and solar PV.
“The rapid growth of intermittent renewables, like wind and solar, in the UK energy mix has led to an urgent need for flexible and ‘dispatchable on demand’ generation assets, such as the Eider portfolio, that can respond immediately when needed by the grid and ensure the lights stay on,” said Rory Quinlan, co-founder and managing partner of Quinbrook.