Private equity group Carlyle is to invest US$374 million in Canadian energy transition platform Amp Energy.
Carlyle Group Partners will use capital from its Infrastructure Opportunity Fund to finance the investment, which Amp chief executive Dave Rogers hopes will speed up the company’s growth strategies this year.
Amp Energy claims to have so far developed more than 1.8 GW of capacity through a combination of utility-scale renewable energy generation, hybrid generation-plus-storage, and energy battery storage in North America, Japan, Australia, Spain and the UK. The company said in a statement the investment will be used to facilitate new business within its core markets.
Carlyle has backed several solar projects in the past year. It invested US$100 million in a partnership with Missouri’s Alchemy Renewables in January to finance and construct a string of solar projects across the US. Then in August, the private equity giant acquired a solar project portfolio in Maine with 100MW capacity in a deal worth more than US$130 million.
Pooja Goyal, head of Carlyle's renewable and sustainable energy team and co-head of the company’s infrastructure group called Amp Energy’s portfolio an “attractive investment opportunity”.
“We see significant value in working with proven management teams through differentiated development platforms with significant global reach,” she said.
Rogers said Carlyle's “extensive global experience and network” will help expedite Amp’s growth strategies.