Munich-based Pacifico Energy joins forces with Eiffel Investment Group to develop photovoltaic plants and battery energy storage systems, helping fuel Europe’s energy transition.
As the urgency of Europe’s energy transition steps up a notch, startups are increasingly playing a role in making the continent’s energy system greener and more independent. This winter might be only beginning but temperatures have dropped, prices have risen and energy security is a daily part of the conversation. Turning to renewable sources is one way that people can be better cared for, the planet can become healthier and the continent as a whole can function more sustainably.
Pooling their resources together, Pacifico Energy Partners has now joined forces with Eiffel Investment Group to accelerate the development of renewable energy projects. It includes a collaborative working agreement as well as a €20 million investment.
Ulf Oesterlin, CEO, Pacifico Energy Partners: “We are very excited about this partnership. This proves that investing into project development in renewable energy is not only ecologically sustainable, but also financially attractive. Receiving funding in challenging times underlines that we are working on a key problem of society – the bottleneck of the energy transition is the lack of permitted renewable energy projects, and we contribute to solving this bottleneck.
The details
- Eiffel Investment Group to pump €20 million into the portfolio, via Eiffel Transition Infrastructure which launched in November
- Pacifico will contribute to projects at mid-stage development, until the projects are ready-to-build, at which point the joint venture may sell the assets.
Jannik Hoffmann, Chief Financial Officer at Pacifico: “The partnership with Eiffel allows Pacifico Energy Partners to focus on what we are best at – identifying the best projects and delivering them. We are committed to making a sizable impact towards a clean energy future and are particularly delighted to broaden our cooperation with Eiffel, a financing party which we have already successfully worked with in past transactions.”
Fueling renewable energy for the future
Founded in 2016, Pacifico Energy Partners is a company developing cutting-edge solutions for wind and solar energy, as well as battery and hydrogen technologies.
Through this venture, the Munich-based company will be focusing on developing a portfolio of agrivoltaic projects in Italy, primarily in the Lazio region and totalling c. 300MW. Agrivoltaics involves combining the power of solar panels and plants on farmland. The crops are planted together with photovoltaic panels, installed with enough height to allow farm machinery to pass underneath, allowing land to be used for solar energy production and agricultural output harmoniously.
Once operational, the projects in Italy are expected to provide over 200k Italian homes with renewable electricity, thereby contributing to avoiding the emission of the equivalent of up to 200k tons of CO2 per year. Further, taking the agrivoltaic approach ensures the continuity of value-creating usage of the land for food production and farming, for instance by planting c.160k olive trees between PV module rows on one project site. Selective additions of battery storage to the plants will additionally contribute to stabilizing the grid.
Pierre-Antoine Machelon, Managing Director at Eiffel Investment Group: “We are very excited about this partnership with Pacifico Energy Partners. This inaugural transaction for Eiffel Transition infrastructure will accelerate the deployment of additional renewable energy capacity by bringing much-needed equity in the early phase of the projects and leveraging Pacifico’s strong experience of PV development.”
