Atlassian cofounder and renewables advocate Mike Cannon-Brookes has backed a brand new fund to finance grid-scale battery initiatives by way of his household fund, Grok Ventures.

Canberra-based specialist fund supervisor Infradebt introduced that Grok, JANA Diversified Infrastructure Belief and several other present household workplace shoppers had participated within the first shut of its Infradebt Power Transition Fund (ETF).

The fund will present senior debt finance to 6-8 battery initiatives with a complete capability of 1.5-2GW over the following few years – amounting the ability output of a big coal-fired energy station.

Infradebt has financed 43 initiatives since its launch in 2014.

CEO Alexander Austin stated finance from ETF will enable a extra fast roll out of battery initiatives.

“Infradebt is extraordinarily happy to have reached this vital milestone for the Power Transition Fund,” he stated.

“Grid scale batteries, and power storage extra usually, is a key aspect to facilitating the orderly and fast decarbonisation of the grid. Decarbonisation requires the fast buildout of wind and photo voltaic and dispatchable grid scale storage to permit the matching of provide and demand on a 24x7x365 foundation.”

The ETF’s first two investments are loans to the Neon Capital Battery and Genex’s Bouldercombe BESS.

The Neoen Capital Battery is a 100MW/200MWh battery mission situated on the outskirts of Canberra. Infradebt has offered a senior debt facility alongside the Clear Power Finance Company.

The Genex Bouldercombe BESS is a 50MW/100MWh mission situated roughly 20km southwest of Rockhampton in Queensland. Each initiatives are at the moment below development and are anticipated to start operations in 2023.

Grok has supported Infradebt for five years, and this time 12 months in the past, as Cannon-Brookes launched his battle for AGL with a $5 billion takeover bid, Grok poured $200 million into Infradebt for a minority stake supporting its moral fund, IEF.  That fund has offered capital for 22 initiatives starting from a number of photo voltaic and farms to a Queensland faculty and Victorian hospital. The mounted earnings fund has delivered an IRR of 6.7% since inception.

Grok CEO Jeremy Kwong-Legislation stated they imagine ETF will likely be one other fund to ship returns and speed up decarbonisation of the grid.

“Since investing in Infradebt Moral Fund again in 2017, we’ve carefully noticed Infradebt figuring out gaps within the capital stack to speed up Australia’s decarbonisation efforts, while offering strong danger adjusted returns,” he stated.