Gippsland offshore wind contender swept up in BlackRock’s huge infrastructure buy-up

The Singapore-based renewables developer with big plans for Australia, including two new big batteries in New South Wales and a 2GW offshore wind farm in Victoria, has been snapped up by Black Rock, as part of its $3 billion acquisition of Global Infrastructure Partners.

In an announcement late last week, the world’s biggest asset manager said it had entered into an agreement to acquire GIP for $3 billion of cash and roughly 12 million shares of BlackRock common stock.

GIP is the world’s largest independent infrastructure manager by assets under management globally, with over
$100 billion across infrastructure equity and credit strategies and a portfolio of more than 40 companies.

In 2021, it was name-checked by IEEFA as one of 10 world-leading equity investors “aggressively investing” in the clean energy sector, including in greenfield renewables.

In Australia, GIP has an office in Melbourne and its assets include the Ports of Brisbane and Melbourne, the Sydney Airport and the Gladstone LNG Project.

In 2022 it briefly signed up to take a 49% share in an investment vehicle designed by AGL Energy to develop, own and manage nearly 3GW of quality renewables and low carbon firming assets – the deal was subject to a demerger of AGL’s renewables business and so was abandoned along with the demerger.

Among its portfolio of companies is Vena Energy, which owns a range of operational renewable energy and battery storage assets around Australia, and has big plans for more, including in the emerging offshore wind sector.

Vena’s projects in Australia include the 125MW Wandoan South solar farm and 100MW/150MWh big battery in Queensland, the latter of which began operations in August 2022 and which has an operational deal with AGL.

Vena also owns the Tailem Bend complex in South Australia, which includes the 95MW first stage solar farm, and an 87MW second stage solar component and a 41MW/41MWh big battery.

In New South Wales it is planning two big batteries, the 408MW, two-hour Bellambi Heights BESS in the state’s mid-west region and the 400MW, two-hour Belhaven BESS in the Riverina Region.

In Victoria, Vena is among the contenders vying for a spot in the Gippsland offshore wind development zone, where it is proposing the up to 2GW Blue Marlin project, made up of four stages of 500MW and 35 turbines each. The first round of successful applicants for seabed licences are expected to be announced sometime in February.

See RenewEconomy’s Offshore Wind Farm Map of Australia.

In the region, Vena in last year signed a “landmark framework agreement” with China solar giant Suntech and energy storage manufacturers Powin and Rept Battero to establish PV and battery production lines in Indonesia.

As well as bolstering Indonesia’s renewable energy supply chain, the deal aims to produce solar and battery components for Vena’s version of Sun Cable – a hybrid megaproject in the Riau Islands targeting 2GW of solar power capacity 8GWh storage.

Like Sun Cable, the Riau Islands megaproject also aims to supply cross-border renewable power to Singapore, in collaboration with Shell Eastern Trading – another deal that was firmed up in Jakarta on Tuesday alongside the supply chain collaboration.

Another GIP company is Californian energy investor Eolian, which in partnership with Wärtsilä last year inaugurated two major interconnected battery storage systems in South Texas dubbed the largest merchant battery system in the world, with a combined capacity of 200MW and more than 500MWh.

In its statement on Friday, BlackRock said that marrying the proprietary origination and business improvement capabilities of GIP with its own global corporate and sovereign relationships would provide a platform for “diversified, large-scale sourcing to support deal flow and co-investment opportunities for clients.”

“Infrastructure is one of the most exciting long-term investment opportunities, as a number of structural shifts re-shape the global economy said BlackRock chair and CEO Laurence Fink.

“We believe the expansion of both physical and digital infrastructure will continue to accelerate, as governments prioritise self-sufficiency and security through increased domestic industrial capacity, energy independence, and onshoring or near-shoring of critical sectors.

“Policymakers are only just beginning to implement once-in-a-generation financial incentives for new infrastructure technologies and projects,” he said.

BlackRock says Bayo Ogunlesi, GIP founding partner, chair and CEO will lead the combined infrastructure platform alongside GIP’s existing management team and four more of its founding partners.

“This platform is set to be the preeminent, one-stop infrastructure solutions provider for global corporates and the public sector, mobilising long-term private capital through long-standing firm relationships,” said Ogunlesi.

“We are convinced that together we can create the world’s premier infrastructure investment firm.”