The Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF), part of the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA), is today announcing 3 new Climate investments targeting offshore wind energy, renewable energy developers, and start-ups in energy transition.
The 3 new investments bring total ISIF commitments to Climate investments to €636 million since 2021, representing 63.6% per cent of ISIF’s stated aim of investing €1 billion in Climate in the period 2021 to 2026.
The latest investments show that ISIF is now on course to meet its stated aim almost 2 years ahead of schedule and to invest significantly more than €1 billion in Climate over the 5-year period.
New commitments announced today
The 3 investment commitments announced today are as follows:
- A €200 million investment in Copenhagen Infrastructure V, the latest Flagship fund of Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (“CIP”);
- A €50 million investment in Impax New Energy Investors IV Fund; and
- A $30 million investment in ArcTern Ventures Fund III.
CIP has already secured 500MW in the first Irish Offshore Renewable Electricity Support Scheme 1 (ORESS 1) auction through its partnership with Statkraft, to develop an offshore wind project in the north of the Irish Sea, with capacity to power up to half a million homes in Ireland.
CIP is the world’s largest dedicated fund manager within greenfield renewable energy investments and invests across a range of technologies, including offshore wind, energy storage, and onshore wind and solar projects, in North America, Western Europe, and the Asia Pacific region.
The Impax Fund will focus on partnering with renewable energy developers and investing in the build-out of renewable energy assets. Impax has an existing presence in Ireland, through its partnership with solar developer BNRG and acquisition of a majority stake in wind developer, Rengen Power, and it will seek to invest in opportunities in Ireland in development platforms, new build projects and new energy infrastructure.
The ArcTern Fund will deploy capital into start-ups which are applying technology to solve climate and sustainability issues. Its target sectors will include electricity and energy (e.g. distributed energy), industry (e.g. process optimisation), transport (e.g. EV charging), food systems (e.g. plant and cell-based food) and nature (e.g. circular economy, carbon capture).
Nick Ashmore, the Director of ISIF, said:
“In 2021, we announced plans to invest €1 billion over 5 years in addressing the Climate challenge and we’re on course to hit that amount about 2 years ahead of schedule.
This demonstrates the importance we’ve been attaching to getting behind Climate investments – and the necessity of making these investments.
The commitments we’re announcing today show ISIF’s appetite to invest across the spectrum of available Climate investments. We’re heavy backers of wind and solar energy because Ireland needs more of this generating capacity to accelerate the economy’s transition to Net Zero.”