Labour-market pension fund PensionDanmark is investing DKK1.4bn (€188m) in a biomass power plant to be built in the UK’s East Anglia, as part of a joint venture with Danish company Burmeister & Wain Scandinavian Contractor (BWSC).

The DKK170bn Danish pension fund – which won this year’s Best European Pension Fund Award at the IPE Conference & Awards in Vienna – said the investment would be made via investment fund Copenhagen Infrastructure I, in which it is the sole investor. 

The joint venture is between the infrastructure fund and BWSC, and this will be the second biomass power plant deal in the UK it has signed.

Torben Möger Pedersen, PensionDanmark’s chief executive, said: “We have to secure our members a good and steady return, and this cooperation delivers that.”

Last year, the venture invested DKK1.4bn in the Brigg project in Lincolnshire.

The latest project – the Snetterton power plant – will have total investment from the joint venture of DKK1.6bn, with DKK200m of that coming from BWSC.

BWSC will build, operate and maintain the power plant for 15 years.

The plant is scheduled to be up and running by spring 2017, and will have a capacity of 44.2 MW – equivalent to the average energy usage of 82,000 households.

The plant will run on straw, and supply of the fuel has been contracted for the next 12 years, PensionDanmark said.

Topics