Retail Employees Superannuation Trust, Sydney, committed A$1 billion ($651 million) to Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners for investments in renewable and clean energy infrastructure, according to a statement on Nov. 22.
The commitment is expected to provide the A$75 billion super fund with exposure to assets such as solar and battery projects, and green data storage centers including Quinbrook's Supernode green data campus in Brisbane.
"In a world increasingly reliant on data, and through the global growth in cloud-based technologies and AI, data centers have become big business and demand for this critical infrastructure is expected to accelerate," Rest CIO Andrew Lill said in the statement.
"Repositories for the storage, management and dissemination of data require significant investments and huge amounts of energy," he said. "Maximizing their energy efficiency and minimizing their environmental impact through our commitment to Quinbrook is just one way we believe we can contribute to strong long-term financial benefits for Rest members, while supporting our objective to achieve a net-zero carbon footprint for the fund by 2050."
Rest Super has been making investment and commitments to renewable assets. In September, the fund committed A$50 million to Octopus Investments to invest in Australian assets involved in the energy transition including wind, solar and storage. In 2019 the fund fully acquired the Collgar Wind Farm in Western Australia, which at the time generated over 40% of the state's renewable energy.
Quinbrook is a specialist investment manager focused on renewable energy infrastructure in the U.S., U.K. and Australia. In October, it closed its U.K.-focused Quinbrook Renewables Impact Fund with £620 million ($773 million) of investor commitments, exceeding its initial £500 million target. Its assets under management was not immediately available.