Gowling WLG's Corporate Energy team has advised Exagen Group Limited ("Exagen") on an investment of up to £35 million from the Octopus Energy Development Partnership, the maiden investment for Octopus Energy's newly launched £185 million (€220 million) fund for green energy projects ("Octopus").

Exagen is building the next generation of utility scale solar and co-located battery storage facilities using its proprietary technology platform and development team. The investment will help Exagen rapidly scale-up to develop, own and operate 5GW+ of generation and energy storage capacity over the next 10 years.

Octopus' initial transaction has been structured as a hybrid investment and project acquisition, and will initially fund the expansion of Exagen and the acquisition of three co-located solar and battery storage projects with an aggregate capacity of ca. 400MW across the Midlands and the North East. As part of the investment, Octopus will take a 24% stake in Exagen.

Partner Gareth Baker and principal associate Stephen Bowman co-led on the deal, alongside a team comprising partners Jonathan Brufal, James Stanier and Ben Stansfield, principal associate Siobhan Doherty, associates Laura Barron, George Nixon and Dan O'Donnell, and paralegals Annabelle Percy and Peter Chicken.

Exagen founder and CEO Jeremy Littman, said: "All of us at Exagen are thrilled by this ground-breaking deal with Octopus, which will support us in our mission to build smarter, flexible renewable generation projects across the grid, enabling communities' access to cleaner, cheaper energy."

Gareth Baker said: "We're delighted to have been selected by Exagen to support their team with this investment. It is great to see the merchant solar and battery storage sector thriving with a new wave of project development in the United Kingdom."

Gowling WLG's multi-disciplinary Energy team has a market-leading reputation, operating seamlessly around the globe. This latest transaction solidifies the team's position at the forefront of the renewable energy sector, and joint development transactions in particular. This includes advisory to HydrogenOne on its investment in green hydrogen developer HH2E, Island Green Power on its transaction with Macquarie Asset Management, and to the shareholders of FI1 limited on the sale of their stake in the first ever UK-Germany energy link.