Climate Investment Newsletter 10/16 - 10/22

Individual Deals and Market Watch

GoodLeap gets $800 million funding for sustainable home push [Bloomberg]

• The San Francisco-based company, now valued at $12 billion, will use the new investment to also eventually move into commercial projects and electric vehicles, according to an emailed statement. The round was led by MSD Partners and also included BDT Capital Partners and Davidson Kempner.

Chile's Colbun issues USD-600m green bond to finance new renewables [Renewables Now]

• Colbun’s first green bond bears a coupon of 3.15% and matures in 2032, the company said. The notes were placed in the international market.

Primavera Capital ploughs USD 600m in Chinese green tech firm Envision [Renewables Now]

• The strategic investment is in Envision Energy, which designs, sells and operates smart wind turbines and energy storage products, and in Envision AESC, which offers Artificial Intelligence of Things (AIoT)-powered batteries.

Oak Hill Advisors’ $500 million joint venture with Bluesource [Global Legal Chronicle]

• The new entity, Bluesource Sustainable Forests Company, will seek to purchase one million acres of North American woodlands that would otherwise be used for timber, and manage the properties to generate forest offsets, which are tradable assets that represent up to a metric ton of carbon that has been sequestered in standing trees.

French Photosol readies EUR 500m sale [Renewables Now]

• French solar power developer Photosol SAS has approached potential buyers for the business, which is estimated to be worth a minimum of EUR 500 million (USD 582.8m), two unnamed sources said as cited by Reuters.

Canada's Federated Co-operatives plans C$510 million ($413.16 million) carbon capture facilities [Nasdaq]

• The Co-op said it signed a memorandum of understanding with Whitecap Resources Inc WCP.TO to store 500,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent annually.

2150 VC hits $312M for fund to build and run cities greener, and emit vastly less CO2 [Tech Crunch]

• Back in February new European VC 2150 launched the first $240 million close of its fund to back technologies reducing carbon emissions via the medium of cities, which pump out CO2 at a prodigious rate as they develop and grow.
• This ‘Urban Sustainability Technology Fund’, as it’s dubbed, is now announcing the final close of its fund at $312 million, showing that LPs have an increasing appetite for this subject. Plus, the fund says it was 33% oversubscribed.

Plug Power breaks ground on USD-290m green hydrogen project in New York [Renewables Now]

• The turnkey hydrogen solutions provider is building a facility with the capacity to produce 45 metric tonnes of green liquid hydrogen per day to serve the Northeast region. In the words of Governor Kathy Hochul, it will be the largest plant in North America producing green hydrogen.

UK makes $247M SAF investment to meet 2050 net-zero targets [Aviation Week]

• The UK government is looking to “kick-start” the commercialization of sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) from household waste with the aim of being able to deliver 10% SAF by 2030.
• The government will also support the UK SAF industry with £180 million ($247 million) to help fund the creation of UK SAF plants. The document also calls for the creation of a so-called SAF clearing house, that will speed up the certification of SAF fuels.

Ford invests £230M into UK electric vehicle manufacturing [Politico]

• Automaker Ford is investing £230 million to build key components for the firm’s electric vehicle line near Liverpool. The firm’s Halewood transmission plant in Merseyside will build Ford’s e-drive systems. The factory currently employs 500 people.

Enefit Green's IPO raises EUR 175m in upper half of price range [Renewables Now]

• Enefit Green AS, the renewables subsidiary of Estonian state-owned energy company Eesti Energia AS, said it has priced its initial public offering (IPO) at EUR 2.90 per share, in the upper half of the price range of EUR 2.45-3.15.

Greencoat Renewables placing raises EUR 165m [Renewables Now]

• The renewable infrastructure company, managed by Greencoat Capital LLP, launched the initial placing under a 12-month share issuance programme in early October to pursue a pipeline of wind and solar investment opportunities in Ireland and continental Europe.

Macro Commitments

New York City pension funds commit to USD 37bn of climate investments by 2035 [Renewables Now]

• Over the next four years, by 2025, the three funds plan to double investments in climate change solutions like renewable energy, energy efficiency and green real estate to more than USD 8 billion.

Britain secures £10bn in green deals before Global Investment Summit [The National News]

• A Spanish-backed offshore wind farm is at the centre of about £10 billion ($13.72bn) in fresh foreign capital for Britain’s green economy, after the UK netted deals before the Global Investment Summit.
• Electric utility company Iberdrola plans to invest £6bn through Scottish Power in the East Anglia Hub offshore wind farms, creating 7,000 jobs, subject to securing planning consent and a contract for difference.

Rio Tinto aims to spend $7.5bn in push to halve carbon emissions by 2030 [FT]

• Rio Tinto’s new chief executive has set out plans to invest $7.5bn over the next nine years to halve the Anglo-Australian miner’s carbon emissions as governments and investors demand more aggressive action on climate change.

Toyota to build U.S. battery plant under $3.4 billion plan [Bloomberg]

• Toyota Motor Corp. plans to invest $3.4 billion in the U.S. through 2030 to establish a new company and build its first U.S. battery plant, becoming the latest global automaker to accelerate the transition to electric vehicles through a battery push. Production would start in 2025 and at first focus on batteries for hybrid electric vehicles, and creating 1,750 new jobs.

Repsol to invest EUR 2.55bn in renewable hydrogen by 2030 [Renewables Now]

• Spanish multi-energy group Repsol SA (BME:REP) has committed a EUR-2.549-billion (USD 2.97bn) investment in the renewable hydrogen value chain by 2030 in an effort to position itself as a market leader in the Iberian Peninsula and become the third largest hydrogen producer in Europe.

INEOS pledges EUR-2bn investment in European green hydrogen capacity [Renewables Now]

• INEOS says that through its subsidiary INOVYN it is Europe’s largest existing operator of electrolysis facilities, which, in combination with its experience in the storage and handling of hydrogen, means it is well placed to be a leading player in the development of this emerging key decarbonisation fuel.

Mike & Annie Cannon-Brookes just turned Grok Ventures into Australia’s first $1 billion VC fund to invest in climate tech [Startup Daily]

• Cannon-Brookes, estimated to be Australia’s third richest person with a personal fortune of around $33.5 billion, went public with a promise to personally commit $1.5 billion of their family wealth to climate change philanthropy and green investments over the next decade in a bid to limit the earth’s warming to 1.5 degrees.

Galp to get EUR 690m from EIB for solar projects in Spain, Portugal [Renewables Now]

• Portuguese energy group Galp Energia SGPS SA (ELI:GALP) has secured three loans worth a total of EUR 406.5 million (USD 473.0m) by the European Investment Bank (EIB) to finance the company's solar projects and electric vehicle (EV) charging network in Spain and Portugal.

CWP, Mercuria JV ready to invest 511 mln euro in renewable energy projects in Bulgaria [Renewables Now]

• CWP Europe, a newly created joint venture of leading renewable energy developer CWP and global energy and commodity group Mercuria Energy Trading, is ready to invest over 1 billion levs ($593 million/511 million euro) in renewable energy projects in Bulgaria, CWP and Mercuria said.

Prime Minister and Bill Gates launch £400m partnership to boost green investment [Gov.UK]

• Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Bill Gates announced a new partnership between Breakthrough Energy Catalyst and the UK Government to drive investment into the next generation of ground-breaking clean energy technologies.
• Announced at the Global Investment Summit, the partnership leverages £200 million of private sector investment in the UK to accelerate the development of the cutting-edge climate technologies needed to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.

Korea's SK E&S to invest up to USD 400m in US renewables platform REV [Renewables Now]

• SK E&S Co Ltd, part of South Korean industrial conglomerate SK Group, has agreed to invest up to USD 400 million (EUR 345m) in REV Renewables LLC, a unit of LS Power that acquires, develops and operates renewable energy and battery storage assets.

DOE announces $105 million for small businesses to invest in clean energy research and development [Energy.Gov]

• The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $105 million in funding for small businesses to pursue the deployment of clean energy technologies, as part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to building a clean energy economy and achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. The projects range from energy technology and sustainable agriculture to atmospheric monitoring and carbon removal.

Canadian pension fund invests $20m in partnership to generate carbon credits [Responsible Investor]

• The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) is to invest $20m in forest protection schemes in South America to generate certified carbon credits that can be traded on voluntary carbon markets.
• The project will be developed jointly with US-based nonprofit Conservation International (CI), which has committed $0.5m of its own funds, in what is billed as a first-of-its-kind initiative by a global asset owner.

Pathways, Frameworks, Case Studies, Research, Climate Science

UK’s Net Zero Strategy expected to unlock GBP 90bn in investment by 2030 [Renewables Now]

• New investment announced as part of the strategy includes an allocation of an extra GBP 350 million of the up-to-GBP-1-billion fund to support the electrification of UK vehicles and another GBP 620 million for targeted electric vehicle grants and infrastructure. It also includes GBP 180 million in funding for the development of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) plants and a GBP-140-million Industrial and Hydrogen Revenue Support scheme to spur industrial carbon capture and hydrogen. The latter will include up to GBP 100 million to award contracts of up to 250 MW of electrolytic hydrogen production capacity in 2023 with further allocation in 2024.

IEA forecasts $250 carbon price under Paris-aligned climate scenario [Responsible Investor]

• For the first time, the intergovernmental body has included a fully-fledged Paris-aligned climate scenario within the core scenarios used for its World Energy Outlook (WEO). The annual report is seen as the ‘gold standard’ for business planning, and shapes expectations over the share of coal, oil, gas and renewables in the global energy mix.

Report: Alt-Protein could make up 11% of global protein market by 2035, but parity is vital [Vegconomist]

• Impact investor Blue Horizon has released a new report titled Food For Thought: The Protein Transformation. It examines how the alt-protein market will evolve in the coming years and what that means for investors.
• According to the report, every tenth portion of meat, eggs, and dairy eaten worldwide will probably be alt-protein by 2035, with revenues for alt-protein companies reaching $290 billion. This shift would save a gigaton of carbon dioxide — the equivalent of Japan going carbon neutral for an entire year — and enough water to supply London for four decades.

Global finance industry sinks $119bn into companies linked to deforestation [FT]

• Global banks and asset managers have extended a total of $119bn of financing to 20 major agribusinesses linked to deforestation in the five years since the Paris agreement was brought into force, according to an investigation by the Global Witness campaign group.

Congo Basin rainforest — invest US$150 million in science [Nature]

• The world’s second-largest rainforest is key to limiting climate change — it needs urgent study and protection.

Activated carbon market worth USD 4.50 billion by 2028; increasing investment in product R&D to aid development [Yahoo Finance]