NextPower UK ESG Fundraising Closed £733m, c.50% Over Target Size
London, 11 March 2025 – NextEnergy Capital is pleased to announce that NextPower UK ESG (“NPUK”), the largest private fund focused specifically on new-build UK solar, has raised a total of £733 million at its final fundraising close, nearly 50% higher than its target of £500 million.
NPUK is a vital cog in the UK’s Clean Power 2030 ambitions of delivering energy security and decreasing the country’s carbon output through increasing the amount of domestic green power production. The Fund provides investors attractive returns through generating stable cash flows from a carefully selected portfolio of new-build utility-scale solar PV assets in the UK with long-term contracted revenue streams. The Fund made its first distribution to investors in September 2023, just 13 months after the Fund’s launch.
The National Wealth Fund was the cornerstone investor into NPUK, investing £250 million on a match-funding basis to drive private capital into new build renewables in the UK. NEC welcomed several new investors into NPUK over the fundraising period, including several local government pension pools, alongside international investors looking to access and capture the attractive growth landscape for new build solar PV in the UK through a specialist investment manager.
To date, NPUK has already deployed over 70% of its committed capital from investors and has recently acquired its fifteenth asset, raising NPUK’s portfolio capacity to 731MW. NPUK now has 249MW of operating solar assets in the UK, including Llanwern solar farm, the UK’s largest operating solar asset.
NPUK has a further 482MW of solar and energy storage projects in construction or ready-to-build, alongside further near-term acquisitions in its pipeline. The Fund continues to make rapid progress in bringing online additional new-build solar and is on track to achieve over 400MW of operating capacity this year. NPUK is expected to exceed 1GW of capacity when fully deployed, contributing significant progress towards Clean Power 2030 ambitions of trebling UK solar capacity in the coming five years.
NPUK is classified as an Article 9 Fund under the EU SFDR, providing tangible and measurable impact, including biodiversity enhancement measures deployed, through the highest level of transparency reporting. Once fully energised, NPUK will provide the approximate equivalent of 371,756 households with clean energy annually and avoid up to an estimated 887,003 barrels of oil equivalent consumption each year.
Michael Bonte-Friedheim, Group CEO and Founding Partner of NextEnergy Group, commented:
“NextPower UK has been another success story for NextEnergy Capital and the wider NextEnergy Group in the backdrop of a difficult global fundraising environment. We raised £733 million and reached a final close nearly 50% higher than the Fund’s initial target of £500 million.
NextPower UK clearly demonstrates the demand from investors for this type of strategy, run by a specialist investment manager with a significant track record of capital deployment into high-quality assets. I would like to thank both our existing and new investors across NextEnergy for their continued support and loyalty and in particular, thank our institutional and pension fund investors who committed to NextPower UK.
The UK remains an attractive and deep market to deploy utility-scale solar and there is a significant opportunity through the UK’s clean energy ambitions for investors to capture this growth with the right execution partners. In anticipation of this, NextEnergy Capital will be launching a new follow-on strategy, NextEnergy UK II, early this summer.”
Stuart Nivison, Head of Portfolio Management at the National Wealth Fund, said:
“Our cornerstone investment in NextPower UK was our first deal to leverage this scale of additional independent investment, and it is exciting to see their success story play out through this milestone fundraise. Today’s announcement perfectly demonstrates the impact our investments can have. Catalytic capital deployed by the National Wealth Fund going forward can help mobilise institutional investment into clean energy projects across the UK, driving growth and providing greater capacity to power homes and businesses.”
Nadeem Hussain, Head of Private Markets and Co-CIO at LGPS Central, said:
“We are committed to investing in high-quality infrastructure opportunities that align with both financial objectives and sustainability principles on behalf of our Partner Funds. NextPower UK offers long-term, stable returns from utility-scale solar farms while driving meaningful environmental impact.”
Imraan Mohammed, Portfolio Manager at Border to Coast, said:
“As long-term institutional investors with a global outlook, we see the UK as an attractive market that punches above its weight for development-stage renewables, given the strong market fundamentals and increasing policy support we are seeing here.
The NextPower UK fund was one of the earlier infrastructure allocations from our diversified Climate Opportunities vehicle. We have been encouraged by the quality and scale of capital deployment the NextEnergy team has been able to deliver, and are pleased with the catalytic effect the Fund has had in crowding in funding for critical UK infrastructure.”