Swedish private equity investor EQT has introduced a Transition Infrastructure strategy to scale-up businesses enabling the clean energy transition, making storage system developer and operator ju:niz Energy its first acquisition. The fund, which will invest in Asia Pacific, Europe and North America, will provide capital and industrial, technological, and sustainability expertise to portfolio companies.. With €246 billion (US$259 billion) in AUM, EQT has more than 15 years’ experience of investing in energy transition-related infrastructure, having invested more than €17 billion in such projects across 25 platform deals. The new strategy will complement the ‘Value-Add’ and ‘Active Core’ strategies in EQT’s existing €72 billion global infrastructure business. “The pace of technological innovation and a steady reduction in costs, coupled with digitalisation and the evolution of AI, continue to drive the need for a transformation of our energy systems and the economy,” said Jan Vesely, Head of EQT Transition Infrastructure. “Against this backdrop, EQT Transition Infrastructure will help emerging but proven solutions and businesses scale, to create the next generation of sustainable energy infrastructure.” The fund’s first investment, ju:niz, develops, builds, and operates utility-scale battery energy storage systems to the latest technical standards. “As the largest European electricity market with rapidly expanding renewable generation capacity, [Germany] offers significant potential for energy storage infrastructure,” EQT said. “In this context, ju:niz is well-positioned to deploy utility-scale battery energy storage systems which help support grid stability and advance decarbonisation efforts.”
