Octopus Energy Generation has launched a new investment fund to enable pension schemes and private wealth investors to easily invest in the energy transition.
The fund, named the CG Octopus Energy Sustainable Growth Fund I, and dubbed “Astris” by Octopus, has been launched with a £165 million cornerstone investment. Astris provides access to over 50 renewable energy projects, including wind, solar and large-scale battery energy storage system (BESS) projects, spread across 15 countries. The fund is now open to private wealth investors and pension schemes through major investment platforms.
According to Octopus Energy Generation, which is the fund management arm of the Octopus Energy Group, Astris allows investors to access the fund monthly alongside a number of respected institutional investors, which allows for more flexible investment options than most traditional private market funds. Astris has been awarded the “Sustainable Focus” label from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which states that the fund has met the highest standards for green investment.
Octopus currently manages £7 billion of green energy projects and has stated that it aims to invest £20 billion into the sector by 2030.
Matt Setchell, co-head of Octopus Energy Generation, said that the fund has been built from the ground up to remove the structural barriers for investors wishing to participate in funding the green energy transition.
He added: “For too long, pension schemes and private wealth have had limited investment opportunities in private markets due to a lack of innovative solutions. The launch of this fund changes that. Day one investors will own a globally diverse portfolio of renewable projects and companies – delivering genuine impact with no compromise on financial returns.”
Jeremy Soutter, managing director at the Carne Group, which is responsible for overseeing the fund’s governance, agreed, adding that the fund is “an important enabler of private wealth and pension fund exposure both to private infrastructure as an asset class and to the energy transition as an investment opportunity”.
This is not the first new investment opportunity Octopus Energy Group has launched this year. In February, the firm launched “the Collective”, a renewable energy investment platform allowing customers to buy shares of a renewable energy project with a minimum investment of £25. The launch of the Collective makes Octopus Energy the first energy company in the UK with a retail investment platform regulated by the FCA, and the platform offers an annual target return of up to 6% over a three-year investment period.
