On October 22, 2025, Aviva Investors partnered with Astatine, an Irish energy infrastructure specialist, to establish a new industrial energy transition platform, targeting €800 million of investment, and aimed at supporting emission reductions in some of Europe’s most energy-intensive industries and hard-to-abate sectors. This investment platform will focus on energy infrastructure projects in the power, heat and transport sectors, assisting with early-stage development, full asset delivery, and subsequent operation of the assets. This will include acquiring, constructing, and operating solar photovoltaic (PV), battery energy storage systems (BESS), substations, industrial heat pumps and heat recovery systems, industrial EV charging solutions and electric fleets, including Electric HGVs. These technologies will be installed directly on client premises to deliver tailored, on-site renewable energy solutions, or connected directly to national grids. All infrastructure investments will be fully managed by the Partnership to optimise commercial targets. The platform will fund energy infrastructure projects, primarily in Ireland, as well as in the UK and continental Europe. It will focus on hard-to-abate sectors such as data centres, food and beverage, cement, pharmaceuticals, medical devices and manufacturing. Under the Partnership, Aviva Investors will become majority shareholder, providing financial backing and driving the platform’s growth, while Astatine will lead on project development, design and delivery, and ongoing operation and maintenance. The platform launches with a seed portfolio of 128 MW of assets, expected to be operational within the next two years, with a further 500 MW+ of pipeline opportunities.
Tom Marren founded the Astatine and is was the founder of CES Energy. Tom Marren sold CES Energy to UK-based Centrica plc. Astatine built a 5.6 megawatt solar farm beside the co-ops processing plant in Nenagh, Co Tipperary.
Earlier, on October 17, 2025, APG Asset Management invested €300 million for a minority stake in Amsterdam-based Return Storage B.V. This growth capital further scales the expansion of Return’s battery energy storage platform in Europe. Return Storage serves customer demand across Europe and is active in the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and Spain, with 70 MW of operational storage capacity in the Netherlands and another 450 MW currently under construction, including the Mufasa and Antares sites.
