Macquarie buys Conergy solar team in new push into battery storage

Macquarie Group has deepened its push into the renewable energy industry, and battery storage in particular, with the purchase of the solar team and development portfolio of Conergy Asia, which developed the ground-breaking Lakeland solar and storage project in north Queensland.

The purchase is being made through Macquarie’s primary renewable energy investment platform, the Green Investment Group, and will deliver it a portfolio of unspecified development projects across the Asia Pacific, and 88 solar experts that make up the Conergy team in Australia, Singapore, Germany and Japan.

Conergy recently completed the Lakeland solar and battery storage project near Cooktown in the far north of Queensland – a 10.8MW solar and 1.4MW/5.3MWh battery storage facility that was the first grid-connected project to combine large scale solar and battery storage.

Conergy has plans in place to expand the facility to 30MW, and also has a bigger pipeline of projects in Australia.

Macquarie says the battery storage expertise is a primary reason for the aquisition.

“Today’s acquisition will also further strengthen our battery storage expertise and allow us to pursue other investment opportunities in a rapidly-growing region for the renewables sector,” Neil Arora, the head of Macquarie Capital for Asia and the Middle East said in a statement, adding the purchase would also build on its solar expertise.

Daniel Wong, the global co-head of Infrastructure and Energy for Macquarie Capital, said the purchase underscored Macquarie’s position as a “world leading developer and investor” in green energy projects, including offshore wind, onshore wind, solar, waste to energy, battery storage and energy

Macquarie says it and the GIG businesses have invested or arranged over £15 billion in over 200 projects across 20 countries since 2011. It says the team is currently developing a pipeline of over 7GW of renewable energy projects, with a number of projects achieving financial

close in recent weeks – including the 128MW Formosa offshore wind farm in Taiwan, the 200MW Canadian Breaks onshore wind farm in Texas and a 235MW onshore wind farm in Vasternorrland, central Sweden.

The deal comes exactly a year after Conergy l was bought by another big investment bank Goldman Sachs and Tennenbaum Capital Partners. CEO Alexander Lenz said he expected the deal to “leverage our capabilities to help accelerate Macquarie’s aspirations in solar.”

Note: This story was updated to reflect fact that purchase does not include already developed projects, just the solar team itself and the pipeline.