Decision on Repair of Moyle CableEuropean Renewable Energy Fund
Mutual Energy, with regulatory approval and as a founding investor established the European Renewable Energy Fund in September 2007 with a €15 million commitment. The objectives of the fund are threefold:
- To contribute to a reasonable and safe return on the £30 million capital rebate received by Moyle Interconnector Ltd as part of the introduction of the BETTA trading arrangements in Britain.
- To assist in dealing with climate change by helping to meet European renewable targets and investing in renewable energy.
- To provide an equity fund that can be accessed by renewable energy developers on the Island of Ireland.
The fund has been established to make equity investments in commercially robust projects that are likely to be either operational or at an advanced stage of development.
Mutual Energy appointed Platina Finance Limited as the fund manager. Mutual Energy has similar rights to other investors in the fund and does not manage the fund day to day in terms of attracting investors or selecting projects for investment. Platina Finance, manager of the European Renewable Energy Fund, is highly experienced in the renewables area and in September 2007 already managed two other renewable funds. It is the aim of the fund to deliver a return to investors by investing in relatively low-risk projects over a five year period followed by a realisation period of 5 to 7 years.
The fund has attracted €105m of private investment to date.The majority of the EREF will be invested in businesses that own renewable energy generation assets in order to aggregate between 500 MW and 700 MW of electrical generation capacity. A small percentage of the fund will be reserved to secure and finance a pipeline of projects still in their development phase in order to boost the fund returns.