One of Australia’s biggest renewables players moves west with gigawatt-scale play

Atmos Renewables is venturing west after building a sizable portfolio on the eastern seaboard, and has signed a joint venture to develop a gigawatt-scale wind, solar and battery portfolio in Western Australian with the UK-based Nomad Energy.

The deal will help Nomad take a portfolio of work-in-progress projects in WA through to completion, the company said in a LinkedIn post last week. 

These include wind, battery storage and solar-plus-battery projects and total to about 1 gigawatt (GW) worth of capacity set to be connected into the WA grid by 2030.

The partnership is part of Atmos’ strategy to grow in Australia, says CEO Nigel Baker.

“Atmos is committed to playing a significant role in enabling Australia’s energy transition and Western Australia is an important part of that transition,” he says.

“The partnership with Nomad is Atmos’ first investment in renewable energy in WA and provides a compelling opportunity to grow the company’s renewable energy investments in that state.

“Nomad brings to the partnership a wealth of local and international renewables development experience, along with a quality portfolio of early-to-mid stage development projects, and is a great fit as a partner for Atmos to take those projects forward.”

Hungry for deals

Atmos was started by funds manager Igneo Infrastructure Partners in 2020, and has grown into a substantial renewables player in Australia with 15 large-scale operating wind and solar farms in its portfolio, of which eight are wholly owned.

The company and its owner went on a buying spree in 2021 and 2022 and says it’s hungry for more renewable assets. It turned its eye to battery storage last year.  

It struck a deal with German energy giant BayWa r.e. in August to buy the 112 MW Karadoc solar farm in Victoria, and work together to develop wind assets in Australia.

In 2021, Igneo bought UK infrastructure investor John Laing’s Australian wind assets for $285 million, including the Cherry Tree and Kiata wind farms in Victoria, the Granville wind farm in Tasmania and minority stakes in the three Hornsdale wind projects in South Australia (but not the Hornsdale big battery).

Last year Igneo bought the three Australian operating solar farms and battery storage projects owned by another global funds giant, Elliott Green Power, of Childers, Susan River and Nevertire solar farms with a combined capacity of 302 MW with under-construction battery storage of 125MW/250MWh.

UK-based Nomad was a founding partner in Stellata Energy, which developed Western Australia’s largest operating solar project, the 132 megawatt (MW, DC)) Merredin Solar Farm, and was a partner in the 300 MW Solas Éireann solar project in Ireland.

It’s led by former head of renewables at Andrew Forrest’s Squadron Energy and its board observer on Sun Cable, Guy Beesley.

Super portfolio

Securing Atmos is a coup for Nomad, as the Igneo subsidiary has stakes in some of the best performing solar and wind farms in the country – and one of the largest with a quarter share of the 420 MW MacArthur wind farm in Queensland.

Atmos owns the Kiata wind farm which at 31 MW is one of the smallest in the country, but according to Rystad data also one of the best performing. 

In June, Kiata beat the previous performance record set in 2017 for a single month with a capacity factor of 64.9 per cent, a figure that beats many coal fired power stations.

In November the also-mini 58 MW Cherry Tree wind farm, which Atmos bought all of in 2021, was the best performing large-scale wind farm in the country.