Squire Patton Boggs has advised Habitat Energy Limited, a UK-based optimisation and power trading platform for grid-scale battery storage, on the acquisition of the company by Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners, a specialist global investment manager focused on renewables, storage and grid support infrastructure.
The team advising Habitat Energy was led by Energy and Natural Resources partner Peter Stewart in London and included partner Trevor Ingle and lead associate, Andrew Slucky and trainee, Anna Sanchez in corporate; partner Patrick Ford and associate Alexander Paterson in tax; partner Janette Lucas and associate Will Saunders in employment; and partner Stuart James, and associates Sam Tibbetts and Francesca Puttock in intellectual property.
Headquartered in Oxford with offices in Australia and the US, Habitat Energy has developed and utilises advanced machine learning and algorithmic capabilities to optimize the strategic and financial value of battery storage assets within deregulated power markets, both stand-alone and co-located with renewables. Habitat has established itself as one of the top performing platforms amongst UK market players focusing on optimising flexible generation and storage.
Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners is a specialist investment manager focused exclusively on renewables, storage and grid support infrastructure and operational asset management in the US, UK and Australia. Quinbrook is led and managed by a senior team of power industry professionals who have collectively invested circa US$8.2 billion equity in energy infrastructure assets since the early 1990s, representing a total enterprise value of circa US$28.7 billion or 19.5 GW of power supply capacity.
Quinbrook plans to support Habitat to further develop its technology suite and advanced machine learning capabilities, continuing Habitat’s expansion into Australia and also the US, where initial focus will be on the ERCOT market in Texas followed by other US ISOs shortly thereafter. Habitat will be deployed to optimise battery storage assets within the Quinbrook portfolio, while continuing to offer its services independently to new and existing clients around the world.
“We are very pleased to have supported the founders and the team at Habitat Energy over the past two years and on this strategic partnership with Quinbrook,” commented Peter Stewart. “I have devoted a large percentage of my career to advancing important new technologies, and Habitat’s is among the most exciting. It now has the opportunity to further develop internationally in a market so critical for the energy transition. This deal was also a great showcase for our full-service and well-tuned UK transaction teams who performed efficiently and expertly throughout.”
Andrew Luers, Co-founder and CEO of Habitat Energy, said: “We are grateful for the support from Peter, Andrew and the Squire Patton Boggs team. The combination of domain expertise, commercial instincts and friendly, collaborative working style made them a joy to work with and greatly contributed to the successful outcome of this transaction. We look forward to continuing to work with this team in the years to come.”