Patrizia, Mitsui-backed fund tips $70m into solar farm rollout

A new sustainable infrastructure fund backed by Patrizia and Mitsui has completed its maiden investment, tipping $70m into a South Australian firm.

YES Group managing director Mark Yates. Picture: Tom Huntley

A new sustainable infrastructure fund backed by German investment firm Patrizia and Japanese trading giant Mitsui has completed its maiden investment, committing at least $70m towards a solar and battery development program across Australia.

The APAC Sustainable Infrastructure Fund (A-SIF) launched in January with a mandate to invest in infrastructure assets across the Asia-Pacific region, include solar and wind farms, battery storage, data centres, healthcare and education facilities.

Its first investment comprises the acquisition of an equity stake in South Australian renewable energy company YES Group and a commitment to fund YES Group’s development of predominantly sub-5MW solar generation and battery storage projects.

The portfolio is targeting a renewable generation capacity of more than 150MW once fully operational, delivering green power to about 65,000 households.

YES Group was established by Mark Yates in 2004, and over the past five years has developed and built more than 120 solar farms in the sub-5MW market, managing 100 per cent of the renewable energy offtake through its YES Energy retail business.

It has also developed other renewable projects across the country, including wind and solar farms and high-voltage substations.

Renewable energy generated by the portfolio of new solar developments will be sold by YES Energy to end users across Australia. YES Group chief executive Mark Yates. Picture: Supplied

The company has worked with Patrizia since 2020, delivering more than 60MW of renewable energy generation and storage projects for a consortium of Australian superannuation funds.

Mr Yates said the fresh round of investment would enable YES Group to “capture the growth potential of our company”.

“The energy transition is creating enormous opportunity to expand our business, and to combine our energy expertise with Patrizia and Mitsui’s deep capital and corporate expertise will enable us to deliver on the potential,” he said.

Renewable energy generated by the portfolio of new solar developments will be sold by YES Energy to end users across Australia, including businesses and embedded networks.

Last year YES Group partnered with Prime Super to take over specialist provider Savant Energy, which operates embedded utility networks across South Australia, Victoria, NSW and Queensland, where it purchases utilities in bulk, and then supplies to individual occupants within multi-tenancy buildings such as apartments, offices and shopping centres.

Patrizia head of infrastructure for Australia and Asia, Saji Anantakrishnan, said the decision to focus on a portfolio of smaller sub-5MW generation assets would ensure diversification across the distribution network, shorter and predictable construction times, fewer transmission losses, and less regulatory risk.

“Decarbonisation and climate change are two core megatrends that underpin our global investment philosophy at Patrizia,” he said.

“This first deal for A-SIF really demonstrates our strong conviction in the energy transition and the attractive long-term returns renewables can generate for our institutional investors.

“By targeting a large portfolio of development projects in this sector, through an experienced and established operational team, will ensure we drive the future growth of A-SIF to become a true flagship mid-market fund in APAC that strengthens Patrizia’s real assets platform in the region.”

Patrizia, based in Germany and with €59bn ($98bn) in assets under management globally, launched A-SIF in January after securing an initial $US110m ($173m) in funding.

It has ambitions to increase the size of the fund to $US1bn ($1.6bn), with a focus on mid-market brownfield opportunities in four core sectors — energy (50 per cent), digital (20 per cent), social (20 per cent) and mobility (10 per cent).

Originally published as Patrizia, Mitsui-backed fund tips $70m into solar farm rollout