EOS in new fundraising for Italian renewable fund

Private equity firm EOS Investment Management has launched a second round of fundraising for its energy fund focused on renewable assets in Italy.

The Efesto Energy Fund, which is incorporated in Luxembourg as a specialised investment fund (SIF), closed its first round of fundraising on €60 million, which it used to buy a 25 megawatts (MW) solar portfolio. The London-based firm launched the fund in 2014 to bring international investors to Italy’s renewable energy market. The fund’s goal is to generate 10 percent returns and its next acquisition will be finalised by the end of the year.

The fund’s current portfolio has solar assets stretching across eight Italian regions, benefiting from feed-in tariffs, access to grid connections and low maintenance requirements.

Italy, the world’s fourth-largest solar market, has seen renewed investor interest lately. Quercus Assets Selection, for example, launched Italian wind and solar funds targeting €300 million in total. In 2014, Italy generated 23.3 Gigawatts/hours (GW/h) of energy from solar, which met 7.5 percent of the country’s electricity needs.

In October, Infrastructure Investor sister publication Low Carbon Energy Investor spoke with Vito Gamberale, chairman of Italian renewable investor Quercus Assets Selection, who argued “Italy has the best raw material of any European country for renewable energy”. He added the country has around 18GW of solar generation spread across half a million plants. “That gives you an idea of how big the opportunity to aggregate assets is,” Gamberale said.

This article was first published on Low Carbon Energy Investor, Infrastructure Investor’s sister publication focused on global energy transition markets.