Super fund Rest commits $1bn to Quinbrook for renewables and green data centres

The $70bn retail sector super fund is stepping up its investment in renewable energy with a $1bn commitment to projects backed by Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners.

The $70bn retail sector super fund, Rest, is stepping up its investment in renewable energy with a $1bn commitment to invest in projects backed by green energy group Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners.

The move will see the fund ­invest directly into Quinbrook’s Net Zero Power Fund, as well as making co-investments in its ­renewable energy projects in the US and Australia.

Rest said on Wednesday that its investment would give it exposure to a range of assets, such as solar and battery projects, as well as green data storage centres, including Quinbrook’s Supernode green data campus in Brisbane.

The Queensland-based Quinbrook, which counts entrepreneur David Scaysbrook among its founders, has made high-profile investments in solar and energy storage investments in the US and the UK, and is a shareholder in the $30bn SunCable project to export solar energy from Australia to Asia, now owned by Grok Ventures, the company of Atlassian co-founder Michael Cannon-Brookes.

Announcing the deal, Rest chief investment officer Andrew Lill said having sustainable data centres was an important part of the transition of the global economy to more efficient energy use.

“In a world increasingly ­reliant on data, and through the global growth in cloud-based technologies and AI, data centres have become big business and ­demand for this critical infrastructure is expected to accelerate,” he said. “Repositories for the storage, management and dissemination of data require significant investments and huge amounts of energy.

“Maximising their energy efficiency and minimising their environmental impact through our commitment to Quinbrook is just one way we believe we can contribute to strong long-term financial benefits for Rest members, while supporting our objective to achieve a net-zero carbon footprint for the fund by 2050.”

Quinbrook co-founder and managing partner David Scaysbrook. Picture: Nic Walker

Mr Lill said most of the fund’s two million members were below 30, allowing the fund to make long-term investments.

“Climate change mitigation, the energy transition and the road to net zero are creating some great investment opportunities for our members,” he said.

He said Quinbrook was “an established and experienced renewables specialist that is looking to help power the net zero transition through targeting large-scale sustainable investments”.

“This investment is expected to help our members grow their super while contributing to a more sustainable future.”

Rest is the only superannuation fund in Australia with 100 per cent ownership of a wind farm, taking control of the Western Australia-based Collgar Renewables, 260km east of Perth, in 2019. In September this year, it announced plans to invest in the Octopus Australia Sustainable Investments Fund, which invests in wind, solar and storage projects,

While Rest did not reveal the amount it was investing, it is believed to have contributed $50m to a $250m fund raising by Octopus, coming in alongside other investors including hospitality industry super fund, Hostplus, Sky Renewables and the federal government’s Clean Energy Finance Corporation.

This brought to $550m the total amount that the Octopus Australia has raised across its renewable energy platform since it was established 12 months ago.

Mr Lill said the investment in Quinbrook “builds on Rest’s track record in supporting the development of renewable energy infrastructure across Australia”.

Quinbrook has invested more than $US8.2bn ($12.6bn) in energy infrastructure assets since the early 1990s, representing more than 19.5GW of power supply capacity.

These include investments in the creation, storage and distribution at scale of solar energy, including a major solar and storage project in the US, “green” data centres, renewables for energy intensive industries and distributed energy solutions including grid support infrastructure for the renewables build-out.