Foresight Group (“Foresight”), a leading infrastructure and private equity investment manager, continues its growth trajectory in renewable energy infrastructure, breaking through the 2GW of generating capacity for the first time.

You can download the press release as a PDF here.

Foresight has been investing in innovative technologies for over 35 years; following the tech crunch and the bursting of the dotcom bubble in the early 2000s, Founder and Chairman Bernard Fairman identified clean energy as an emerging sector.  Initially investing in clean technology companies, Foresight rapidly grew its expertise in waste to energy managing funds for the London Green Fund and the UK Green Investment Bank, and in Solar managing the largest solar focused renewable infrastructure company, the £1.1bn Foresight Solar Fund Limited which listed on the London Stock Exchange in 2013 and was recently welcomed into the FTSE 250 index.

Foresight has a portfolio of more than 190 renewable energy generation assets under management globally.

It has supported the global transition to clean energy through investments in more than 100 solar plants with more than 1.3GW of generating capacity across the UK, Southern Europe and Australia, becoming the second largest manager of solar assets in Europe.

The Company’s investments also extend to onshore wind farms where it manages 22 farms in the UK, France and Germany amounting to 370MW, bioenergy and waste where it manages 39 projects of 57MW of clean electricity and 49MW of thermal energy, reserve power 170 MW and 46 MW of utility scale battery storage assets throughout Europe.

Recent transactions include the acquisition of two operational wind farms in Northern Ireland and Yorkshire and two large scale agricultural AD plants producing enough energy to power in excess of 30,000 homes.

Earlier in 2019, Foresight advanced its ambitious expansion plans by acquiring the advisory mandate for John Laing Environmental Assets Group Limited (“JLEN”).

It is estimated that every year Foresight’s assets divert 800,000 tonnes of waste from going to landfill, process some 2 million tonnes of waste, save 1.5 million tonnes of greenhouse gases equivalent to taking more than half a million cars off the road and generate enough clean energy to power over half a million of households.

Achieving this milestone is further demonstration of Foresight’s environmental social and governance (ESG) investment credentials which it applies to all investment strategies.

 

Commenting on the milestone, Bernard Fairman, Chairman of Foresight Group, said: “In just over 10 years, we are making a positive contribution to protecting the planet by generating more than 2GW of clean energy. We call it investing for a smarter future and we are proud to be delivering attractive returns for our investors whilst creating a sustainable legacy for future generations.”

Federico Giannandrea, Partner and Head of Business Development of Infrastructure, added: “I came on board at a time when Foresight’s foray into renewable energy was in its infancy. I recall that in 2010 we had less than 50MW of renewable energy generation capacity and in less than 10 years we have achieved what at the time seemed very ambitious. We hope to keep up this momentum with a goal to reach 3GW of installed generating capacity by 2023, by facilitating the transition from subsidised to unsubsidised renewable energy.”