CleanPeak Energy Holdings has signed an agreement to acquire 100% of Sustainable Energy Infrastructure (SEI), one of Australia’s largest owners and developers of sub-5MW solar and battery storage assets.
The acquisition brings to CleanPeak a portfolio of 71MWac of solar PV power plants across 16 sites in addition to 42MW of battery energy storage systems (BESS) across 11 sites in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia. The portfolio includes three solar-plus-storage projects.
Established in 2018, SEI has built a specialised position in the sub-5MW distributed energy segment, developing grid-connected solar and battery storage assets primarily serving regional Australia.
The acquisition aims to support CleanPeak in accelerating the growth of its in-front-of-the-meter solar portfolio in line with its strategic objectives over the next three to five years.
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Philip Graham, chief executive officer of CleanPeak Energy, said SEI’s portfolio aligns with the company’s vision to develop a smarter, cleaner and more resilient renewable energy infrastructure.
“By integrating SEI into our platform, we are not only expanding our national footprint but also strengthening our ability to provide low-cost and reliable renewable energy to customers,” Graham said.
“This acquisition positions us to accelerate the growth of our retail business while continuing to lead in the development of distributed energy solutions.”
The SEI acquisition is an expansion of CleanPeak’s asset base in the sub-5MW segment, a market characterised by distributed generation assets that connect to distribution networks rather than transmission infrastructure.
These smaller-scale projects typically face different regulatory frameworks and market dynamics compared to utility-scale developments, requiring specialised development and operational expertise.
SEI’s geographically diverse asset base across multiple states in the National Electricity Market (NEM) will provide CleanPeak with a “scalable, cost-effective risk management solution for its retail business”, enabling better matching of generation to customer demand across different regions and time periods.
Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, nor was a timeline provided for completion of the transaction. CleanPeak Energy is being advised by Gresham Partners as financial adviser and Maddocks as legal adviser on the deal.
Australian energy storage developments
The CleanPeak acquisition comes amid the continued expansion of energy storage deployment across Australia.
As reported by Energy-Storage.news last week, Amazon Australia has placed battery storage at the centre of its data centre expansion strategy, signing nine power purchase agreements that prioritise storage-backed renewable energy to support its growing cloud computing infrastructure in the country.
This marked the company’s largest single-year investment in the country and will help spearhead the expansion of its data centre AI. This also represented the first solar-plus-storage power purchase agreements Amazon has signed in Australia and the first outside the US.
In project development, Neoen Australia has submitted its 3.2GWh Bondo wind-plus-storage project to environmental assessment under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act.
Meanwhile, Alinta Energy has commenced construction on the 1,000MWh first stage of South Australia’s Reeves Plains BESS. The 250MW/1,000MWh battery storage project, located approximately 60km north of Adelaide, is the organisation’s third battery storage project and is set to become one of the largest energy storage facilities in South Australia when operational in 2028.
In Western Australia, Fortescue is fast-tracking what it describes as the “world’s largest off-grid system”, incorporating 4.5GWh of battery storage to support its mining operations in the state. The portfolio will consist of 1.2GW of solar PV capacity, alongside 600MW of wind. The first 290MW of solar capacity is expected to be operational by early 2027.
Interested in Australia? Read Energy-Storage.news’ Energy Storage Summit Australia coverage and related content.
