Brookfield targets Forrest’s Windlab renewable developer after Origin snub

Canadian asset management giant Brookfield is reportedly targeting the renewable energy developer Windlab to help propel it towards its goal of building up to 14 GW of wind, solar and storage in Australia over the next decade.

Brookfield had wanted to deliver that target through the agreed purchase of Australia’s biggest electricity retailer Origin, but that complex $20 billion deal was rejected last year by a minority of shareholders, and Brookfield decided against an on market bid.

The purchase of Windlab would be an interesting one, although at a fraction of the price of Origin. It is only a recent addition to the Andrew Forrest family-owned renewables business, which has renewable energy ambitions in Australia of a similar scale to Brookfield.

Forrest’s Squadron Energy owns 75 per cent of Windlab, with the remainder owned by Federal Asset Management following a $70 million market takeover in 2020, part of Forrest’s first overt venture into the green energy space.

A spokesperson for Brookfield declined to comment on the speculation, first reported in the Australian Financial Review on Saturday. A spokesperson for Squadron also declined to comment. Deal makers often seek publicity on their transactions in the AFR, although some of their proposals can be sheeted down to kite-flying.

Still, the AFR reported that Barrenjoey Capital Partners and Corrs Chamber Westgarth are advising the Forrest family business, while Brookfield has hired Herbert Smith Freehills to look after the legals.

Windlab was spun out of the CSIRO a decade ago with some ground breaking technology that was able to identify the most promising wind resources, and has helped identify some of the country’s best wind projects, and build a few of its own.

These include the Kennedy Energy Park, the first combined wind, solar and battery facility on Australia’s main grid, the consistently top performing though small Kiata and Coonooer wind farms in Victoria, and the 456 MW Coopers Gap wind farm in Queensland, now owned by AGL and which remains the biggest in the state.

Windlab has a few much bigger projects under development, including the South Queensland renewable hub, which includes a 1.4 GW wind project, and plans for neighbouring solar and battery installations, and the Gawara Baya wind farm and big battery project in central Queensland.

Other projects in its development pipeline include the potential 800 MW Prairie wind project in north Queensland, and the potential 600 MW Junction Rivers wind project near Balranald in south west NSW.

Forrest has ambitious plans of his own to deliver 15 million tonnes of green hydrogen a year by 2030, and to build 12 GW of renewables in the next decade.

Its only renewable deal in Australia to date has been an agreement with Greenleaf Renewables to co-develop some projects, including the 400 MW Moonlight Range wind farm and big battery, which could begin construction in 2025.

It could be that Squadron, which paid more than $4 billion to buy CWP Renewables last year, and has inked a $2.75 billion deal for wind turbine deliveries from GE, has enough in its own pipeline to meet those targets.

Brookfield, meanwhile, has continued its global renewable plans with a major agreement with Microsoft for 10.5 GW of wind and solar capacity, and had previously signed MoUs with China’s Envision and India’s Reliance for potential wind, solar and battery manufacturing opportunities in Australia.