Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec is buying Australian renewable energy and battery developer Edify Energy, part of a wider push to expand its holdings Down Under in the years ahead.
The Canadian pension fund giant, now commonly known as La Caisse, said Monday that binding agreements have been struck that will see it acquire Edify and inject capital into the company to finance two ready-to-build solar and battery projects now under way. It expects to commit about $1-billion in all.
The two projects will see Edify deliver 900 megawatts of electricity production capacity and 3,600 megawatt-hours of storage. Mining giant Rio Tinto PLC and the Australian government have signed offtake agreements to purchase the resulting power, the Caisse and Edify said in a joint statement.
The investment is the latest from the Caisse in Australia, which it considers a priority market with particular opportunities in infrastructure and real estate.
The pension fund had about $13-billion of its total $496-billion in assets invested in the country at last count, twice the amount it had five years ago, and it plans to double that amount again by 2030. Among its infrastructure holdings in Australia are the Sydney Metro, Port of Brisbane and Transgrid – which runs the country’s biggest electricity transmission network.
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This summer, the Caisse completed its first bond issue in the Australian market, raising $1.6-billion from what it called “strong interest” from investors in the Asia Pacific and elsewhere.
Demand for energy storage continues to escalate as countries decarbonize their economies by integrating renewable power and needs increase from customers such as data centres and manufacturers, according to Wood Mackenzie, a global research and consultancy group that serves the energy and mining industries. China led the world in capacity growth in 2024 as it speeds up adoption of wind and solar energy.
Edify was founded in 2015 and pioneered Australia’s first utility-scale solar and battery storage project three years later, according to the company. It has since delivered 11 projects that yield more than 1.1 gigawatts of capacity, with a pipeline of work for another 11 gigawatts to come.
“The agreement with La Caisse is a pivotal moment for Edify, providing balance sheet strength to seriously ramp up Edify’s speed of execution of firm, dispatchable green generators,” the company’s founder and executive chairman, John Cole, said in the statement. “We have found the perfect owner to supercharge the business.”