Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP) has announced its CI Energy Transition Fund I (CI ETF I) has closed at the hard cap of €3bn ($2.994bn), which it says makes it the ‘largest dedicated clean hydrogen fund globally’. - h2 View

CI ETF I is planned to invest in the next generation of renewable energy infrastructure, including industrial-scale Power-to-X projects, enabling institutional investors to participate in the decarbonisation of hard-to-abate sectors.

CIP says the fund will primarily focus on greenfield projects, aiming to contribute to the decarbonisation of industries such as agriculture, aviation, shipping, chemical manufacturing, and steel production through the use of green fuels, including green hydrogen.

With a portfolio of planned projects in Western Europe, South America, and Australia, aimed at producing green hydrogen, green ammonia and sustainable aviation fuel at gigawatt-scale, CIP believes the fund’s current portfolio could reduce more than 7.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide annually, once at full capacity.

In May 2022, CIP unveiled plans to establish a dedicated artificial island in the North Sea for large-scale green hydrogen production. Dubbed ‘Brintø’, CIP anticipate the revolutionary facility could produce up to one million tonnes of green hydrogen per year once at its full capacity of 10GW.

Seeing commitments from investors across the Nordics, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and North America, H2 View understands the fund saw an approximate 50/50 split between existing CIP fund investors and new investors.

According to CIP, the fund’s investor base comprises around 65 institutional investors, primarily pension funds, life insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds, asset managers, and family offices.

We are very pleased to welcome a prominent group of existing and new institutional investors to CI ETF I and are delighted that investors share our confidence in and appetite for clean energy infrastructure projects and invest alongside CIP in the next phase of the energy transition. Solutions such as Power-to-X will be key for countries and industries to take the next big leap within reaching the commitments of the Paris agreement and achieving energy independence. As an industry pioneer and one of the global market leaders in greenfield renewable infrastructure investments, CIP is uniquely positioned to invest in this segment.

Jakob Baruël Poulsen, Managing Partner at CIP