SmartestEnergy and AMP Capital sign renewable electricity deal for UniSuper
12th October 2021 – Sydney, Australia
SmartestEnergy and AMP Capital, on behalf of UniSuper, sign renewable electricity deal linking Providence Asset Group solar farm to the Fund’s East Coast property assets under a ‘net-zero by 2022’ commitment.
- A three-year renewable power agreement has been signed with Marubeni Corporation’s subsidiary, SmartestEnergy and AMP Capital on behalf of UniSuper, to link electricity generated by a Victorian solar farm to UniSuper’s East Coast property assets
- This is enabled by the milestone PPA contract between SmartestEnergy and Providence Asset Group (PAG) for their 500GWh portfolio of community-based solar farms
- The AMP Capital partnership supports one of Australia’s largest super funds, UniSuper, as they work towards carbon neutrality in directly owned property portfolio by January 2022
In a three-year renewable electricity agreement with, SmartestEnergy links Providence Asset Group’s (‘PAG’) Numurkah solar farm in Victoria to UniSuper’s directly owned East Coast property assets.
UniSuper, the $100billion super fund that recently opened to all Australians, has announced its intention to achieve carbon neutral status for its directly owned real-estate property portfolio by 1st January 2022 - eight years ahead of their initial 2030 goal. This could make them one of the first super funds to achieve net-zero across its direct real estate portfolio.
Robert Owens, CEO, for SmartestEnergy Australia said, “It is excellent to work with forward thinking and sustainably focused organisations such as UniSuper and AMP Capital. This agreement shows the demand for renewable energy in Australian business and we aim to connect more companies to renewable generation, enabling their important steps towards Net Zero.”
Providence Asset Group (PAG) own and operate the 10-hectare community solar farm in Numuerkah VIC. This agreement follows SmartestEnergy’s milestone PPA agreement for PAG’s 500GWh portfolio of 30+ community based solar farms across Victoria and New South Wales. The arrangement continues SmartestEnergy’s strategy in enabling organisations to procure a support renewable energy in Australia.
Under this new renewable electricity agreement in partnership with AMP Capital and PAG, SmartestEnergy will allocate renewable energy certificates (LGCs) created by the Numurkah solar farm to match 100% of the base building electricity consumption for UniSuper’s East Coast assets, including Dapto Mall, Marrickville Metro, 7 Macquarie Place and Malvern Shopping Centre. This means that the contracted UniSuper sites can report zero carbon emissions for the electricity consumed by the base building services, including the air conditioning and lifts.
Mr Nunn, AMP Capital said, “The signing of this renewable electricity contract helps support the viability of new solar farms and provides a market signal that there is demand for more renewable electricity generation facilities to be built. The contract also supports clean energy jobs and the orderly transition away from fossil fuel dependence in Australia.
“We are proud to be able to show that a major commercial real estate portfolio can achieve zero net carbon in a cost neutral way at a price that is less than what we’ve paid for traditional electricity, and that supporting renewables and combatting climate change is not only the right thing to do for the environment but also cost effective for our investors.”
John Pearce, UniSuper’s Chief Investment Officer said: “We’re committed to being an environmental, social and governance (ESG) leader. UniSuper, and our members, are passionate about advocating for the rapid decarbonisation of our economy and we’re proud to achieve carbon neutral status for [such a large part of] our direct real estate portfolio from 1 January 2022, eight years ahead of our initial target for this asset class.
“This renewable energy agreement demonstrates carbon neutral portfolios can be achieved to maximise the sustainability of the portfolio without sacrificing investment returns for our members. We thank AMP for supporting our portfolio-wide commitment to net zero with comprehensive actions to meet this ambitious target.”