Igneo Infrastructure Partners has boosted its Australian renewable energy portfolio after winning an auction for the purchase of a 60 per cent stake in the Lal Lal wind farms in Victoria, and is now looking at more transactions and rolling out three battery storage projects.
Lal Lal is the name given to two neighbouring wind projects, the 144MW Yendon wind farm and the 84MW Elaine wind farm, which reached practical completion earlier this year.
The purchase is the fifth renewable energy transaction from Igneo, through its newly created investment arm Atmos Renewables, and takes its portfolio to seven operating wind farms and five operating solar farms totalling 1GW and another three co-located battery storage development projects.
Most of the solar farms were obtained through the purchase of Elliott Green Power, one of the many renewable energy portfolios that has been offered for sale in Australia this year.
Three of those solar farms – Susan River and Childers in Queensland, and Nevertire in NSW – are the site of the proposed big batteries, two of which will be sized at 50MW, another at 25MW, and all with two hours storage with a focus on shifting output into the evening peaks.
“We are potentially pretty close,” Atmos CEO Nigel Baker told RenewEconomy. “We could get to NPT (notice to proceed) later this year on two of those projects.
The 60 per cent stake in Lal Lal was sold by funds managed by InfraRed Infrastructure and from Macquarie’s Green Investment Group. Infrastructure manager Northleaf Capital Partners remains a 40 per cent shareholder.
Baker said Atmos is in the market for more wind projects, including green fields projects that it could buy and/or co-develop with smaller developers.
He said the company wanted to grow its portfolio, but didn’t have a specific target. “We are not wedded to any specific numbers,” he said.
In an earlier statement, Igneo’s Daniel Timms said the money manager aimed to become a market leading Australian renewables business”.
