Dealflow | April 9, 2021

BlackRock Real Assets closes $4.8 billion green energy fund

Amy Cortese
ImpactAlpha Editor

Amy Cortese

ImpactAlpha, April 9 – With backing from 100 global institutional investors, Global Renewable Power Fund III will take advantage of what BlackRock sees as a $10 trillion investment opportunity created by the transition to net-zero energy. About 80% of all global electricity capacity installed last year was renewable, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency. 

Record raise

The fund is among the largest climate infrastructure funds raised to date and follows the asset manager’s fully invested $1.6 billion Global Renewable Power Fund II. Like its predecessors, Fund III will focus on solar and wind power, but will also invest in climate-related infrastructure such as energy storage and distribution and transportation.

BlackRock Real Assets’ global renewable energy funds have invested in 250 wind and solar projects across 13 countries in 4 continents. The new fund has made three investments in onshore wind in Europe, solar in Asia, and distributed solar generation in the U.S.

ETF launch

BlackRock also launched a new exchange-traded fund, the U.S. Carbon Transition Readiness ETF, which pulled in $1.25 billion on its first day of trading, according to BlackRock’s Sarah Kjellberg. That makes it the biggest launch in the ETF industry’s thirty-year history.