Warren Murphy, the solar energy investment fund’s chairman, told SMSF Adviser that the asset class would appeal to investors who had experience with classic infrastructure assets, as solar infrastructure delivered a similar predictable income.
“Investing in solar energy assets offers investors a strong, stable yield that is typical of infrastructure assets,” Mr Murphy said.
“The asset class has low operating costs, the electricity generated is highly predictable and the technology is well proven.”
Mr Murphy added that despite concerns around recent power outages related to solar investments, the risk of solar assets failing was low and that risk could be taken on by counterparties as energy buyers in large-scale projects such as solar energy farms.
“If the revenue from the solar assets are contracted to good counterparties, then the overall investment is low-risk and will deliver strong, stable yields,” he said.
“Renewable energy is cheaper than thermal generation and those attractive economics plus the focus on lowering Australia’s carbon emissions means an attractive outlook for solar assets being built in 2020.”
Australian Solar’s investment fund was hoping to raise between $15 million and $125 million from investors in its capital raising, with a focus on smaller solar farms and blue-chip buyers already in place.
“One of our initial assets is a project where the output is being sold to Wesfarmers and the WA government, so it becomes akin to a property lease in the solar market,” Mr Murphy said about the forthcoming fund in October.
