The Taaleri SolarWind III Fund, Taaleri Energia’s sixth renewable energy fund, has held a first closing, with approximately €286m in commitments.
With a target size of €600m and hard cap of €900m, the fund will remain open for new commitments throughout 2024.
The first-close investors include the European Investment Fund, Varma Mutual Pension Insurance Company, Taaleri and the Taaleri Energia team. Finnish pension funds, foundations, endowments, family offices, and individual investors were also strong supporters of the fund in the first close, investing through a fund managed by Aktia Bank. With a significant number of investors in active due diligence, it is expected there will be continued strong demand in future closings.
The fund’s investment strategy is to acquire, develop, contract, construct, operate and exit a portfolio of utility scale onshore wind farms, photovoltaic solar parks and battery energy storage assets across its target markets – the Nordics & Baltics, Poland, south-east Europe, Spain and Texas. The fund is targeting a return of 10% net IRR over its 10-year term.
It will be seeded with a portfolio of 50 development projects, which have been acquired by the Taaleri Energia team during the past 18 months. It is expected that several of these sites will reach ready-to-build status and move into construction during the next 12 months, leading to significant investments from the fund.
If all the development seed portfolio projects were to reach ready-to-build status during the investment period, they would represent 7.7GW of installed electricity generating capacity and require approximately €2.6bn in equity from the fund to construct. The fund will offer substantial co-investment opportunities to investors, it said.
Taaleri SolarWind III is classified as an Article 9 “Dark Green” fund, the highest sustainability category under the EU Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation.
“The SolarWind III Fund strategy follows on from the success of the SolarWind II Fund. We are operating in the same target markets, working together with the same strategic partners, but starting with a large seed portfolio of development projects. The demand for renewable energy projects across our target markets has increased significantly over recent years, with a marked additional increase in demand over the past 18 months. By securing development projects early we have been able to lock in considerable potential future value for the SolarWind III Fund,” said Taaleri Energia managing director Kai Rintala.
“The SolarWind III Fund’s investments will have significant and sustainable positive impacts in the countries and local communities where they are constructed. The renewable energy power and storage plants that the Fund will develop and build will generate green electricity for around 1.3m households, offset an estimated 2.3m of tonnes of CO2 emissions, reduce air pollution, improve grid infrastructure, create local employment, generate local and state tax revenues and increase energy security,” added Taaleri Energia head of investor relations Stephen Ross.