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The ISIF is supporting three investment funds focused on renewable energy and climate-focused start-ups, as the Irish fund gets closer to its goal of investing €1bn in climate action projects by 2026.
The Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF) has announced three new climate investments to support offshore wind, renewable energy developers and energy transition start-ups.
The majority of the funding – €200m – will go towards the latest flagship fund of Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP). The new fund by this organisation aims to become the largest global fund dedicated to greenfield renewable energy infrastructure.
CIP said the fund currently has more than €5.6bn in capital commitments and has a target of €12bn. CIP focuses on investments in various renewable projects such as wind, solar and energy storage.
ISIF has also announced a €50m investment into a fund managed by Impax Asset Management Group, which is focused on renewable energy developers. An ISIF investment of $30m is going into ArcTern Ventures Fund III, which is focused on early-stage companies that are applying technology to solve climate and sustainability issues.
The ISIF said the new investments bring its total climate investments to €636m since 2021. This is more than 63pc of ISIF’s goal of investing €1bn in climate projects by 2026.
“In 2021, we announced plans to invest €1bn over five years in addressing the climate challenge and we’re on course to hit that amount about two years ahead of schedule,” said ISIF director Nick Ashmore.
“This demonstrates the importance we’ve been attaching to getting behind climate investments – and the necessity of making these investments.
“The commitments we’re announcing today show ISIF’s appetite to invest across the spectrum of available climate investments. We’re heavy backers of wind and solar energy because Ireland needs more of this generating capacity to accelerate the economy’s transition to net zero.”
In February, the Environmental Protection Agency announced €14.3m in funding for 33 research projects to address the climate crisis and environmental issues. The week before this announcement. the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service released figures which showed that January 2024 was the eighth consecutive month to become the hottest on record.
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