Allens advises on second stage of renewables fund

Allens has assisted AGL Energy Limited with the second stage of its Powering Australian Renewables Fund, an innovative financing initiative designed to unlock investment in the development of large scale renewable energy infrastructure. QIC joins AGL in the initiative as equity partner on behalf of its clients the Future Fund and those invested in the QIC Global Infrastructure Fund.

Allens advised AGL on the transfer of the first two assets into the fund, which will eventually comprise approximately 1000 megawatts of large-scale renewable energy infrastructure and assets.

A separate team at Allens also advised the Powering Australian Renewables Fund and its Sponsors, AGL and QIC, in relation to the project financing of both assets in connection with their transfer into the fund.

The assets, the Broken Hill Solar Farm and the Nyngan Solar Farm, were both developed by AGL in conjunction with the Australian Renewable Energy Agency and the NSW Government, and commenced operations in 2015.

'We congratulate AGL and QIC on their progress in this ground-breaking initiative,' said lead partner Kate Axup.

'The project involved a large number of different teams from Allens in a number of different roles, so our project management experience was significant.

'We're looking forward to working with AGL on the next stage of the process, the transfer of the Silverton Wind Farm greenfields project in NSW.'

Project financing partner Michael Ryan added: 'We are delighted to have assisted the Powering Australian Renewables Fund complete with a competitive project financing package for what is the largest project debt package to date for solar farms in Australia.'

The project drew on Allens' a+ alternative services offering through the use of an Allens Collaborate website through the firm's enterprise collaboration and data room cloud platform.

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