Copenhagen Infra Partners seals fourth CHP deal

Danish fund manager Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP) and a Scandinavian developer have invested £160 million ($208 million; €188 million) in a combined heat and power (CHP) plant in southern England.

This is the fourth biomass facility CIP and Burmeister & Wain Scandinavian Contractor (BWSC) are jointly backing. The 27.8MW CHP project will be located in Kent, using local wood sources to power about 50,000 households. The plant is expected to be operational in 2018, and BWSC has agreed to provide maintenance for 20 years.

Through its $2 billion Copenhagen Infrastructure II fund that closed in July 2015, CIP will invest around 80 percent of the capital, with BWSC providing the balance. The two had previously invested in three other CHP joint projects in England, comprising two still under construction and the 40MW Briggs Renewable Energy Plant, which began operations in January.

“The Kent project presents an attractive investment opportunity for CIP in a country with a well-established and stable regulatory regime,” Christina Grumstrup Sorensen, a senior partner at CIP, said in a statement. “The investment is aligned with our strategy of developing projects benefitting from long-term contracts with strong industrial partners in order to deliver stable returns for our investors.”

Last month, Kent received another investment in a CHP plant from the UK Green Investment Bank, which provided an £80 million loan to build a 43MW project for the Kemsley Paper Mill.