Power Technology

Daily Newsletter

07 August 2023

Daily Newsletter

AXA IM Alts to buy 25% stake in renewables company Finerge

Finerge has an operating capacity of 2GW, consisting of 77 wind farms and 17 solar plants in Portugal and Spain.

AXA IM Alts, an alternative investment arm of insurance giant AXA, has agreed to purchase a 25% interest in Portuguese renewable energy developer Finerge.

The seller is Igneo Infrastructure Partners. Financial terms of the transaction were not shared.

The deal supports AXA IM Alts’ plan to invest in assets that support decarbonisation, digitalisation and electrification.

Headquartered in Matosinhos, Portugal, Finerge was established in 1996 and has been developing solar photovoltaic (PV) plants and wind farms across Portugal and Spain.

The company has an operating capacity of around 2GW, which includes 77 wind farms featuring 849 turbines and 17 solar plants spread across 58 municipalities in Portugal and five provinces in Spain.

The infusion from AXA IM Alts is expected to boost Finerge as it further develops its renewable energy portfolio.

This deal is set for completion by the end of 2023 and follows AXA’s investment in the Hornsea 2 offshore wind farm in the UK in 2022.

Ørsted sold 50% of its stake in Hornsea 2 to AXA IM Alts and Crédit Agricole Assurances. The two companies acquired a stake of 25% each in the offshore wind farm with 1.4GW of capacity.

AXA’s total investment portfolio has now reached 3.3GW.

AXA IM Alts infrastructure deputy head Julien Gailleton stated: “Our conviction is that climate change is the great issue of this century and the central risk of tomorrow. We believe that integrated renewable energy-independent power producers like Finerge, which have the capacity to scale as 21st-century utilities, will be essential to delivering the energy transition as fast as it is needed.

“We look forward to partnering with Igneo and the Finerge management team to accelerate the build-out of the Finerge fleet across solar, wind and other energy transition technologies.”

ESG 2.0 marks a shift towards stricter environmental rules

ESG is moving into a different era, which we call ESG 2.0. While ESG 1.0 was driven by voluntary corporate action, spurred by pressure from activist consumers and investors, ESG 2.0 is being driven by a new wave of government policies. The EU has taken the regulatory lead, with rules introduced or in the pipeline that will price emissions, regulate the use of the terms ‘ESG’ and ‘sustainability’ in marketing materials, and make ESG reporting mandatory. The US has taken a different approach, favoring less regulation and more financial support in the form of tax breaks for clean industry (renewables plus nuclear and hydrogen). China is planning to expand its emissions trading system to more sectors, decarbonize its heavy industry, and ramp up its use of renewables. The new policy direction is mainly motivated by the ambition to hit net zero emissions targets. But on top of this, governments are now competing for clean industry and trying to challenge China’s leadership on the production of the world’s green technologies such as solar panels and batteries, as well as the production and refinement of materials needed for energy transition such as lithium. These driving forces are leading to policy that will impact every sector, not just heavy industry, and will keep ESG near the top of the regulatory agenda over the longer term.