Brookfield builds decarbonisation platform in South-east Asia

[SINGAPORE] Brookfield Asset Management has made its first renewables investments in the Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand as it builds a decarbonisation platform in South-east Asia.

The global investment firm has acquired Alba Renewables, a clean-energy developer with 1.8 gigawatts (GW) of wind, solar and battery storage assets predominantly in the Philippines and Thailand. It has also bought a 100 megawatt long-term, contracted, operational wind project in the central Vietnam region.

The investments were made through its Catalytic Transition Fund, which also recently invested in a partnership with clean-energy expert Solarvest in Malaysia, to jointly develop more than 1.5 GW of solar and battery energy storage projects.

The fund is backed by US$1 billion of catalytic capital from Alterra, Brookfield’s dedicated vehicle to mobilise private capital into emerging markets such as South-east Asia.

Daniel Cheng, Brookfield’s Asia-Pacific head of renewable power and transition, said: “These transactions, in addition to our recent joint venture in Malaysia, provide Brookfield with a strategic entry of scale into South-east Asia and a network effect that strengthens and enhances our renewable power capabilities across the region.”

Cheng noted that the ecosystem Brookfield has created will help it to better underwrite and build its investments across the entire jurisdiction.

South-east Asia is at the forefront of the global energy transition, with a need for experienced operators, he added.

Brookfield said that the Alba Renewables investment provides an opportunity to scale and accelerate the growth of the decarbonisation platform it is building, across other target markets in South-east Asia.

Meanwhile, the central Vietnam investment provides Brookfield with a seed and a “highly de-risked entry into a market with opportunities to invest at scale”, it stated.

Cheng shared: “By acquiring a seed asset in Vietnam and backing Alba’s expansion… we are catalysing platforms that can deliver reliable, low-carbon energy where it is most… impactful.”

Andrew Affleck, Alba Renewables chief executive officer, noted that Brookfield’s backing would “strengthen its ability” to deliver clean, dependable and competitively priced energy at scale to support the regional energy transition.