Climate Investment Newsletter 10/9 - 10/15

Individual Deals and Market Watch

Specialised contracting services company Quanta Services Inc (NYSE:PWR) announced the completion of its USD-3-billion (EUR 2.58bn) takeover of renewables infrastructure builder Blattner Holding Company.

Japanese conglomerate Eneos Holdings Inc (TYO:5020) announced it has reached a deal to acquire domestic renewables developer and operator Japan Renewable Energy (JRE) for about JPY 200 billion (USD 1.78bn/EUR 1.55bn), confirming earlier local media reports.

Sunrun Inc (NASDAQ:RUN) has increased the size of its non-recourse warehouse lending facility by USD 1 billion (EUR 864m), while also lowering the interest, the US home solar company said.

Investors in the round, which values the company at $12 billion, include MSD Partners, the investment firm managing the money of Michael Dell, the billionaire founder and CEO of Dell Technologies. BDT Capital Partners, Davidson Kempner Capital Management and additional investors, including current shareholders, also participated.

US utility-scale renewables developer Urban Grid announced it has secured USD 275 million (EUR 238m) of flexible capital after expanding and extending its existing partnership with private credit manager Crayhill Capital Management.

Created by the Kamine Family, founders of the Kamine Development Corporation, a pioneer that has built $3.5 billion in large-scale infrastructure projects across the U.S. over the past 40 years, Do Good Foods is a closed-loop system that collects excess foods such as meats, fruit, and vegetables, from grocery stores using reusable coolers, and upcycles them into a nutrient-dense animal feed for the production of sustainable animal proteins.

Desert-to-Power is a flagship renewable energy and economic development initiative led by the African Development Bank. Its objective is to light up and power the Sahel region by building an electricity generation capacity of 10 gigawatts through photovoltaic solar systems via public, private, grid and off-grid projects by 2030.

The Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA) has disbursed a loan of ~₹11 billion (~$146.43 million) to Vector Green Energy, a Mumbai-based independent power producer focused on solar and wind energy.

Macro Commitments

NatWest Group Plc said it will lend 100 billion pounds ($136 billion) to customers cutting carbon emissions by the end of 2025.

The European Commission (EC) issued its first green bond, worth EUR 12 billion (USD 13.9bn), to fund the green and sustainable elements of its NextGenerationEU recovery plan from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Irish bank has allocated an additional €5bn to the fund which was launched in 2019 with a target of lending €1bn per annum for green and transition projects over five years.

Octopus Renewables, part of the generation arm of the renewable energy retailer, and renewables developer RES will combine their expertise and capital to develop, own and operate the facilities. The partners want to make the most of surplus solar and wind energy by storing it as green hydrogen, supporting the UK’s energy independence and the decarbonisation of industrial businesses.

Ahead of the Strategy’s launch, Zero Carbon Buildings Minister Patrick Harvie visited the NG Homes project in Springburn, Glasgow. The project, with £9 million in funding, is expected to save more than 650 households up to 60% in energy bills.

The group said it has pledged to fight against the deterioration of forest ecosystem as deforestation is the main cause of biodiversity loss and carbon emissions. Furthermore, deforestation represents a double loss for the climate because forests make are the greatest contributors to carbon capture.
Some €500m of the total €1.5bn has been earmarked for reforestation projects in emerging countries enabling a total of 25 megatons of CO2 to be captured each year.

The announcement came at the first part of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15) in the southwest Chinese city of Kunming this week, with the second part due to take place in May 2022.

Croatia's state-owned energy supplier Hrvatska Elektroprivreda (HEP) said that it is developing solar power plants with a total capacity of 168 MW at 18 locations across the country under deals with local governments - an investment worth 1.08 billion kuna ($166 million/144 million euro).

Pathways, Frameworks, Case Studies, Research, Climate Science

New South Wales, the southeastern Aussie state, will look to attract more than AUD 80 billion (USD 58.7bn/EUR 50.8bn) in investments through a new strategy aimed at spurring the green hydrogen sector.

Emerging market economies need $1 trillion a year of public and private finance in order to transition to a low-carbon economy in the fight against climate change, a report from asset manager BlackRock (BLK.N) said.

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