Haddington Ventures Announces $650 Million Equity Syndication Program to Finance the World’s Largest Green Hydrogen Platform
AIMCo, GIC, Manulife and Ontario Teachers’ Providing Funding for a Green Hydrogen Project to Help the Western U.S. Utilities Meet Their Sustainable Energy Goals
Houston, Texas - Haddington Ventures, LLC has formed Haddington ESP I, LP to provide construction equity for projects developed by the Advanced Clean Energy Storage Joint Venture (ACES Delta, LLC), which will be the largest green hydrogen platform in the world upon completion. With this equity funding, construction can begin in June 2022, and hydrogen hub operations are scheduled to commence in 2025.
The investors in Haddington ESP are Alberta Investment Management Corporation (AIMCo), GIC, Manulife Financial Corporation (Manulife) and Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board (Ontario Teachers’). In addition to the investors’ initial $650 million equity commitment, they have additional rights to increase their collective investment to $1.5 billion.
“This is a pivotal investment for western states seeking to meet their aggressive decarbonization goals,” said John Strom, Managing Director of Haddington Ventures. “The ACES Delta hub will be larger than any existing green-hydrogen production and storage site by a factor of 10, which is the scale needed for electric utilities. The project uniquely leverages readily scalable electrolyzer technologies with multiple large salt dome storage caverns to make a meaningful environmental contribution.”
ACES Delta is developing the green hydrogen storage hub near Delta, Utah, with electrolyzer capacity to produce up to 100 metric tonnes per day of green hydrogen under a long-term contract with the Intermountain Power Agency (IPA). IPA is comprised of 23 Utah municipalities and owns the Intermountain Power Project (IPP). IPP supplies power to the IPA members, six rural electric cooperatives, and municipal utilities in Southern California, including Los Angeles, Burbank and Glendale.
The initial funding from Haddington ESP will finance a project to use renewable energy resources to power 220 megawatts of electrolyzers that will split water into hydrogen and oxygen. The resulting zero-carbon green hydrogen will be stored in salt-dome storage caverns and made available on demand to IPA, which intends to utilize the hydrogen in its combined-cycle natural gas plant to generate electricity for its project participants.
Construction of the initial phase of the hub, which is now underway, will help create up to 400 local construction jobs throughout the 3-year construction cycle, and will contribute significant property tax revenue to the local county services such as law enforcement, infrastructure, and others.
ACES Delta is a joint venture between Mitsubishi Power Americas and Magnum Development, a managed portfolio company of Haddington Ventures. The Haddington/Magnum team brings experience in underground salt storage development, construction, and operation while Mitsubishi Power Americas brings experience and technological support for the electrolyzers and other power related elements. For additional information, please visit aces-delta.com.
“AIMCo is excited to be participating in the ACES Delta Platform alongside strategic partners, which are aligned in supporting the Delta site becoming a key hydrogen production & storage hub for the Western US. Hydrogen is expected to play a vital role in meeting many industries and stakeholders' current and future decarbonization goals. We see the long-term contracted nature of the initial Project fitting well within the strategic objectives of our client’s portfolios and the potential for future investment in this growing sector."
Ben Hawkins, Head, Infrastructure, Renewables & Sustainable Investing AIMCo
“We firmly believe that green hydrogen will play a key role in decarbonization in the US, where long-duration storage will be essential for the higher penetration of renewable power, and to meet fluctuating inter-season power demand. As a long-term investor, we are pleased to partner with this strong group of likeminded developers and equity partners to position ourselves well for the growing hydrogen economy.”
Ang Eng Seng, Chief Investment Officer of Infrastructure for GIC
“Manulife is thrilled to expand its longstanding investment relationship with Haddington Ventures and partner alongside these strategic investors in projects developed by ACES Delta. We believe ACES Delta is uniquely positioned to build a large-scale green hydrogen production and storage platform to serve growing customer demand. This investment supports our objectives to help facilitate the decarbonization of energy sources and grow our $42 billion portfolio of green investments.”
Adam Wise, Head of Natural Resources and Sustainable Solutions, Manulife
“We’re proud to be investing in one of the largest and most advanced green hydrogen projects in the U.S.. Ontario Teachers’ is committed to decarbonization and the energy transition and we believe green hydrogen production and storage will play an essential role in this transition. We see the ACES Delta platform as the beginning of a long-term partnership with a top-quality developer.”
Chris Ireland, Managing Director, Greenfield and Renewables at Ontario Teachers’
Legal representation to Haddington ESP investors was provided by Sidley Austin LLP, while Haddington Ventures was represented by Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP.
About Alberta Investment Management Corporation
Alberta Investment Management Corporation, AIMCo, is one of Canada's largest and most diversified institutional investment managers with more than CAD $168 billion of assets under management, as at December 31, 2021. AIMCo invests globally on behalf of 32 pension, endowment and government funds in the Province of Alberta.
The AIMCo Infrastructure group manages a portfolio of over CAD $10.5 billion in investments, comprised primarily of long-term equity positions in OECD-based infrastructure assets. These assets typically provide essential services to the public and are either regulated or have highly contracted revenues with the potential for long-term capital appreciation. AIMCo infrastructure investments are intended to match long duration real return asset characteristics with inflation-indexed pension liabilities.
About GIC
GIC is a leading global investment firm established in 1981 to secure Singapore’s financial future. As the manager of Singapore’s foreign reserves, GIC takes a long-term, disciplined approach to investing and is uniquely positioned across a wide range of asset classes and active strategies globally. These include equities, fixed income, real estate, private equity, venture capital and infrastructure. Its long-term approach, multi-asset capabilities and global connectivity enable it to be an investor of choice. GIC seeks to add meaningful value to its investments. Headquartered in Singapore, GIC has a global talent force of over 1,800 people in 10 key financial cities and has investments in over 40 countries.
About Manulife
Manulife Financial Corporation is a leading international financial services provider that helps people make their decisions easier and lives better. With our global headquarters in Toronto, Canada, we provide financial advice and insurance, operating as Manulife across Canada, Asia, and Europe, and primarily as John Hancock in the United States. Through Manulife Investment Management, the global brand for our global wealth and asset management segment, we serve individuals, institutions, and retirement plan members worldwide. At the end of 2021, we had more than 38,000 employees, over 119,000 agents, and thousands of distribution partners, serving over 33 million customers. Our principal operations are in Asia and Canada, and the United States, where we have served customers for more than 160 years. We trade as 'MFC' on the Toronto, New York, and the Philippine stock exchanges and under '945' in Hong Kong. In the previous 12 months we made CAD$32.7 billion in payments to our customers.
Not all offerings are available in all jurisdictions. For additional information, please visit manulife.com.
About Ontario Teachers’
Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan Board (Ontario Teachers') is a global investor with net assets of C$241.6 billion as at December 31, 2021. We invest in more than 50 countries in everything from equities to real estate to infrastructure and venture growth, to deliver retirement income for 333,000 current and retired teachers in Ontario.
With offices in Hong Kong, London, San Francisco, Singapore and Toronto, our more than 350 investment professionals bring deep expertise in industries ranging from agriculture to artificial intelligence. We are a fully funded defined benefit pension plan and have earned an annual total-fund net return of 9.7% since the plan’s founding in 1990. At Ontario Teachers’, we don’t just invest to make a return, we invest to shape a better future for the teachers we serve, the businesses we back, and the world we live in. For more information, visit otpp.com and follow us on Twitter @OtppInfo.
About Haddington Ventures
Founded in 1998, Haddington Ventures, LLC oversees a growing portfolio of successful conventional and renewable energy businesses that are bringing innovative new infrastructure to the U.S. energy sector. Haddington’s unique combination of industry knowledge, investment experience and operational expertise provides an important advantage in identifying and creating value in its investment opportunities. Generally, Haddington invests in companies whose businesses support the vast operating and infrastructure requirements driven by the growing demand for energy.