Partners Group, the global private markets investment manager, has agreed on behalf of its clients to invest more than AUD$200 million ($142 million) in equity to acquire and construct the first stage of Murra Warra Wind Farm (Murra Warra I) in Australia.
The 226-megawatt wind farm is being acquired from Renewable Energy Systems (RES) and Macquarie Capital, which jointly developed the project. Partners Group is leading the delivery of Murra Warra I, which will comprise 61 Senvion 3.7-megawatt turbines with a total nameplate capacity of 226 megawatts, and is located approximately 18.6 miles north of Horsham in the state of Victoria. RES will work alongside Partners Group to provide certain ongoing services to support the project. Construction of Murra Warra I commenced in March 2018 and is expected to be completed in mid-2019.
The project has already entered into long-term power purchase agreements for a substantial portion of its generation output with investment-grade commercial and industrial customers, including Telstra, Australia’s largest telecommunications company; Coca-Cola Amatil; Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ); the University of Melbourne; and Monash University. The wind farm is also expected to support around 150 jobs in regional Victoria during construction, stimulating further investment in local businesses and services.
Benjamin Haan, partner and co-head of private infrastructure Asia-Pacific for Partners Group, said, “We continue to believe the Australian renewable energy sector is benefiting from a transformative trend, with a significant amount of coal-fired generation retirements expected in the coming decade. Investing into a project such as Murra Warra I, where we can enter during the construction phase and successfully deliver the project through to its operation phase, is consistent with our ‘building core’ strategy in infrastructure and is Partners Group’s fourth major wind farm investment in Australia since 2015.”
The Murra Warra I investment follows Partners Group’s recent AUD$700 million ($498 million) commitment to develop Grassroots Renewable Energy Platform (Grassroots), a large-scale platform that aims to construct over 1.3 gigawatts of new wind power, solar power and battery storage assets across Australia within the next four years.
Also in the Australian renewable energy sector, in June 2015, Partners Group invested into the development of the 240-megawatt Ararat Wind Farm, which started supplying clean energy to the Australian national grid in mid-2017.
Andrew Kwok, senior vice president and co-head of private infrastructure Asia-Pacific for Partners Group, said since 2014, Partners Group has “delivered over 900 megawatts of renewable energy generation capacity in the region, with another 490 megawatts currently under construction.”
