Danish energy giant extends reach into Australia solar and battery market

Danish energy giant Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners has extended its reach into the Australia solar and battery storage sector with the purchase of a majority stake in UK-based Elgin Energy.

The deal announced on Thursday (UK time) did not reveal a price for the majority stake in Elgin Energy, which has recently expanded into Australia, has 2GW of “ready to build” solar and storage projects, and a pipeline of 15GW of projects in the UK, Ireland and Australia.

Elgin has revealed four large scale solar and battery storage projects in Australia, including the recently approved Glanmire project in NSW and the Shady Creek project in Victoria. Both feature 60 MW of solar and 60 MW, two hour battery storage installations.

CIP, which claims to be the world’s largest dedicated fund manager specialising on greenfield renewable energy investments with more than €28 billion of fund raising, already has a major interest in Australia through its investment in the 2.2 GW Star of the South wind project in Victoria.

Last year it unveiled its first big investment in battery storage in the Australian market, choosing Canadian Solar’s e-storage division and its Solbank technology to build a 240 MW, two hour (480MWh) battery at Summerfield in South Australia that would be the biggest in the state.

CIP indicated at the time it was looking at up to 2GW of battery storage in Australia, mostly around two hours of storage, with two projects targeted in each of the state grids that make up the National Electricity Market.

The purchase of a majority stake in Elgin will help it along that path.

CIP is also advancing the massive Murchison green hydrogen project in W.A, which would combine around 6GW of wind and solar capacity with 3GW of electrolyser capacity, enabling the conversion of electricity into hydrogen gas which can be transported and exported.

However, those plans to build 550 wind turbines and 10,000 hectares of solar arrays may run into heavy local opposition, with the Geraldton Guardian reporting that a local petition in the town of Kalbarri against the project has raised nearly 3,000 signatures.

This story has been amended to remove reference to the MidWest offshore wind farm, which is not part of the CIP portfolio.