Well invested: How HDI is contributing to the energy transition

HDI Group ,

25.8.2022

Sustainable investments

An up-front look at a few basic facts and figures will help us to understand what Talanx is doing in the area of infrastructure investments, and put this business area’s activities into perspective.

At the end of 2020, the Talanx Group had directly invested around EUR 3.7 billion all in all in infrastructure projects. EUR 2 billion of this amount is attributable to renewable energy, underscoring Talanx’s claim to be making a real contribution to the green energy revolution. The Group’s long-term goal is to invest EUR 5 billion in infrastructure and renewable energy sources. Talanx’s projects already generate 2,660 million kilowatt hours of green electricity a year today. This is enough for approximately 810,000 households – roughly the size of a city like Munich. Such a figure clearly shows how the Group’s infrastructure investments are helping it achieve the sustainability goals it has set itself.

3 examples of sustainable investments

Wind power

Der Windpark Mahlwinkel liegt außerhalb des gleichnamigen altmärkischen Dorfes, knapp 50 Kilometer nordöstlich von Magdeburg. Der Park umfasst 20 Anlagen, deren Rotorblätter sich in 140 Metern Höhe drehen. 90 Millionen Kilowattstunden erzeugen die Windräder von Mahlwinkel auf diese Weise jährlich – eine Menge, die ausreicht, um rund 25.000 Haushalte mit Naturstrom zu versorgen. Die ökologische Stromerzeugung soll dabei so gut wie nur möglich im Einklang mit dem Artenschutz stehen. Zu diesem Zweck kann die Anlagen Gefahren für die Tierwelt antizipieren - beispielsweise für Vögel, die das Gebiet in bestimmten Jahreszeiten durchqueren oder zu einer Tageszeit besonders aktiv sind – und schaltet sich, auch aufgrund meteorologischer Daten, automatisch ab.

Talanx ist einer der größten Investoren in Windkraftanlagen in Deutschland - Onshore und Offshore. Insgesamt gehören 21 Windparks zum Portfolio, darunter drei auf See. Talanx war mit von der Partie, als mit „Gode Wind 1“ in der deutschen Nordsee erstmals ein Offshore-Windpark über eine Grüne Anleihe („Green Bond“) finanziert wurde.

Solar power plants

The Bienvenida solar farm, which is located near Badajoz in Spain and is one of the largest in Europe, has 550,000 solar modules capable of generating 180 megawatts (MW) of electricity on 180 hectares. Construction was completed in October 2020 despite the difficulties caused by the coronavirus crisis, and the plant has been feeding electricity into the grid since December of the same year. The facility in Bienvenida can provide up to 80,000 households with electricity. It does not require any feed-in subsidies.

Talanx has a total of seven solar power plants in its portfolio. For example, the Company provided roughly EUR 250 million in finance for solar power plants in Spain in 2020. These are helping to save almost 63,000 tonnes of carbon emissions per year.

However, Talanx is not just investing in generating green electricity using wind and solar farms. Thanks to its equity interest in transmission system operator Amprion, Talanx also accounts for a sizeable portion of the billions of euros being invested in Germany’s electricity grid infrastructure as the country transitions to green energy.

Communications infrastructure

Talanx is helping lay another type of cable in France, where it is co-financing fibre-optic links. The Group helped launch two such projects in 2020. A number of studies have also shown that, since it uses less electricity, fibre-optic technology offers a comparatively sustainable solution without compromising on performance.

Talanx’s participation in financing the French fibre-optic project in April 2020 was its first investment in this new asset class. It is contributing EUR 200 million as part of an international debt finance transaction worth a total of EUR 2.1 billion. The money is to be used to expand the fibre-optic network in areas that had previously had only poor to medium access to fast Internet. As a result, the project will supply a significant number of French households with fibre-optic Internet.

In the second investment that it made in expanding fibre-optic Internet facilities in France last year, Talanx is contributing more than EUR 60 million to another international debt finance transaction with a term of 20 years. The project in question aims to install roughly 2 million fibre-to-the-home connections over the next four years.

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