Taaleri Energia announced its SolarWind III Fund has reached a final close with €630 million in total commitments, including €74 million of co-investment commitments, marking the firm’s sixth renewable energy fund.
The fund will pursue a value-add strategy focused on acquiring, developing, contracting, constructing, operating and exiting a portfolio of utility-scale onshore wind farms, solar parks and battery energy storage system (BESS) assets. Taaleri Energia said the primary target markets are the Nordics, the Baltics, Poland, Southeast Europe and Spain, with selective investments in the United States, specifically Texas.
Taaleri Energia said SolarWind III has so far made €360 million in investment commitments across a mix of development-stage projects and assets at different points in the construction and operational lifecycle. The fund’s current pipeline includes 50 development-stage wind, solar and BESS projects totaling 7 gigawatts. It also includes an operational 36 MWh BESS in Finland and a 200 MWh BESS project in Texas that is under construction.
In addition, the fund’s committed portfolio includes a 154 MW wind project in Serbia under construction, a 129 MWp solar project in Finland under construction, a 112 MW wind project in Latvia under construction, and a hybrid wind-plus-storage project in Lithuania totaling 45 MW of wind capacity and 36 MWh of storage, also under construction. Taaleri Energia said it expects the fund to be fully invested over the next 18 to 24 months.
The investor base spans European institutions and pension funds, including Erste Group Bank AG, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the European Investment Fund, Ilmarinen Mutual Pension Insurance Company, KBC Verzekeringen (in partnership with EIF), SmartCap, Varma Mutual Pension Insurance Company, VBV Pensionskasse, and other European institutional investors.
Taaleri Energia said Finnish pension funds, foundations, endowments, family offices and individual investors are also backing the strategy through a vehicle managed by Aktia Bank.
The firm said SolarWind III is classified as an Article 9 fund under the EU’s Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation. It also said the fund benefits from support from the European Union under the InvestEU Fund, and that SmartCap’s Green Fund is financed by European Union NextGenerationEU Recovery and Resilience Facility funds.
Taaleri Energia said it manages €1.2 billion in renewable energy assets and operates as part of the Taaleri Group, which reported €2.7 billion of assets under management across its private equity funds, co-investments, and single-asset vehicles.
KEY QUOTES:
“We are delighted by the strong interest the Taaleri SolarWind III Fund has attracted from a broad range of institutional investors. At almost twice the size of its predecessor, the Fund welcomed new investors from Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Estonia, Finland, France, Romania, Spain, and Switzerland. We sincerely thank all new and returning investors for their commitments.”
Stephen Ross, Head of Investor Relations, Taaleri Energia
“We appreciate the trust placed in us by our investors and we are pleased with our execution of the Fund strategy thus far. Looking forward, the Fund has a strong development portfolio that gives us confidence in our ability to continue to invest in attractive construction projects.”
Kai Rintala, Managing Director, Taaleri Energia
