Aware partners with renewable energy platform

Aware Super has partnered with Birdwood Energy to create the nation’s newest distributed renewable energy platform.

This is aimed at developing renewable and battery energy storage system solutions (BESS) to support Australia’s energy transition.

Aware will be the sole institutional investors in Birdwood’s Distributed Energy Platform that will focus on acquiring late-stage developments, ready-to-build projects and equity investments in businesses to scale and accelerate distributed energy.

This will complement Aware’s $2 billion investment in utility-scale wind and solar generation assets.

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Aware Super head of infrastructure, Mark Hector, said: “An investment in the Birdwood Distributed Energy Platform is not only consistent with our strategy to increase our exposure to energy transition through diversification into distributed renewable energy generation and storage, it is also aligned with our objective of generating strong risk-adjusted returns for Aware Super members, which can be achieved through the deployment of further capital into sustainable investments..

“This opportunity provides our members with a unique entry point into a platform with a strong pipeline of small scale, fast deployment renewable energy and storage assets, with BESS being a critical technology in supporting our nation’s sustainable transition to a clean energy future.”

Birdwood Energy founder and chief executive, Scott McGregor, said: “Distributed energy is difficult for institutional investors to access due to the multitude of small developers and companies. 

“While this sector offers the cheapest, most secure and cleanest energy system, it does require investment at scale in order to achieve capital and operating efficiencies and hit our net zero targets – with distributed energy we are able to fulfil about 60 per cent of Australia’s future energy requirement.”

This is the second renewable energy deal the fund has made this year after it made an investment in Intera Renewables in March, a newly established platform that would aggregate five of Palisade Investment Partners’ operational renewable energy assets across Australia into a single entity of scale.

With particular emphasis on developing and constructing new renewable energy projects, Intera would focus on a combination of long-term value creation through organic growth and provide investors with stable income returns underwritten by its existing, high-quality portfolio of operating assets.

The assets would comprise six wind farms and one solar farm across Queensland, South Australia, Victoria and Tasmania.