On Monday, Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ), one of Canada’s largest institutional investors and manager of CAD 365.5 billion (about $302.5 billion) in client assets, announced that it is buying, through its own mostly-owned subsidiary, Trencap, Albertan natural gas company Enbridge‘s stake in Canadian renewables firm Énergir .
Following the $1.14-billion transaction led by CDPQ, Trencap will own 100 percent of Noverco, which in turn owns all of Énergir. CDPQ currently owns about 65 percent of Trencap, alongside minority limited partners, including Canadian impact pension investor Fonds de solidarité FTQ.
Énergir, which holds more than $8 billion in assets (half of which are actively involved in the production and distribution of electricity and renewable energies and associated services) serves over half a million customers in Québec and the northeastern U.S. Énergir is the main distributor of natural gas in Québec, where it also produces provincial electricity from wind power through various joint ventures.
Énergir is also active in the U.S. through subsidiaries and other investments, and produces electricity from hydro, wind and solar sources, in addition to being the primary distributor of electricity and the sole distributor of natural gas in Vermont.
“CDPQ’s first investment in Énergir dates back to 2004. For more than 15 years, we have been supporting this Québec company in its growth and diversification, in both Québec and the United States,” said Emmanuel Jaclot, Executive Vice-President and Head of Infrastructure at CDPQ. “With this transaction, CDPQ is furthering its support of Énergir, an innovative business that is working to decarbonize its operations for the benefit of its customers, for example by focusing on energy efficiency and renewable gas, thus contributing to a greener North American economy.”
Earlier this year, Énergir joined U.S. and French natural gas infrastructure peers SoCalGas, GRDF and GRTgaz in committing broadly to climate goals. In a joint statement released by the companies in January, Énergir and its co-signatories voiced their support for several sustainability measures, including the use of conventional natural gas and renewable gases (including hydrogen), solutions for mobility (transportation sector) alongside low-carbon battery-electric solutions, promoting natural gas vehicles (NGVs), Bio-NGVs and FCEVs (fuel cell electric vehicles) as viable alternatives to conventionally fueled vehicles, and integrating conventional gas and renewable gases in future road, rail and marine transportation planning.
