Partners Group has agreed to invest over US$200 million as the controlling shareholder in a Taiwanese solar power development platform on behalf of its clients, according to a company announcement.
Cathay Life Insurance, Taiwan's largest insurer and a subsidiary of Cathay Financial Holdings, is also acquiring a minority stake in the platform through a Partners Group-managed vehicle.
The platform has agreed to co-develop a portfolio of up to 550MW of solar power plants across Taiwan over the next three years with Sinogreenergy, a Taiwanese developer of photovoltaic power plants.
Partners Group and Sinogreenergy have already sourced a number of sites throughout Taiwan for the development of rooftop and ground-mounted solar plants and have others in due diligence.
Once completed, the portfolio will be supported by a 20-year Power Purchase Agreement with the state-owned utility.
The agreement comes at a time of increased support for the use of solar energy in Taiwan, with the recently elected government stating its intention to triple the solar power installation target from 6.2GW to 20GW by 2025.
"We believe this is a great opportunity to build a sizeable solar power platform in one of Asia's largest and most sophisticated economies. Our investment comes at an inflection point in the Taiwanese renewable energy sector," says Benjamin Haan, managing director at Partners Group.
The partnership with Sinogreenergy, which is expected to close during the third quarter this year, is Partners Group's third significant solar platform investment in the last two years.
Earlier in 2016, Partners Group invested US$100 million in Silicon Ranch Corporation, a U.S. owner and operator of solar power production facilities.
In 2014, the firm invested in Japan Solar, a solar platform established to build utility-scale solar power plants across Japan.
In addition to these transactions, Partners Group has made three other solar sector investments globally since 2010 on behalf of its clients.