Standard Life plc (‘Standard Life’ or the ‘Group’), a retirement specialist focused entirely on retirement saving and income, has completed an infrastructure financing transaction, providing £61 million of long-term financing secured against the Snetterton Renewable Energy Plant, a biomass power facility in Norfolk, led by Octopus Capital.

The transaction demonstrates an innovative investment structure, that enables pension and insurance capital to access infrastructure assets within a matching adjustment-eligible structure. For infrastructure owners, the structure allows for additional borrowing from other more traditional third-party lenders and structures. 

Standard Life has developed an approach that offers greater certainty of contractual cashflows while maintaining exposure to investment grade infrastructure assets. For Standard Life's customers, investments such as these have the potential to provide the long-term, predictable cashflows that support secure retirement incomes, resilient investment returns and lasting financial security.

The Snetterton Renewable Energy Plant has been operational since 2017 and generates renewable electricity from biomass feedstocks sourced predominantly from UK agriculture. The facility produces enough electricity to power more than 100,000 homes and forms part of the UK's renewable energy infrastructure. It benefits from a stable revenue profile with a significant portion contracted which supports long-term visibility of cashflows. These characteristics can make infrastructure assets attractive to long-term investors seeking dependable income streams to support customers' retirement savings and retirement income needs.

The transaction represents the first investment by Standard Life utilising this new infrastructure financing structure and creates a blueprint that can be scaled and replicated across a broader pipeline of infrastructure assets. Investments such as this are made possible by Standard Life’s Pension Risk Transfer and Individual Annuity premiums.

Manuel Dusina

This transaction represents an important milestone for Standard Life and demonstrates how innovative structuring can create new opportunities for pension and insurance capital to access infrastructure investments. By combining real estate and infrastructure expertise, we have developed an innovative Project Infrastructure financing structure that provides the long-term, predictable cashflows our customers need while supporting sustainable investment in essential UK infrastructure.

As a retirement specialist, our focus is on helping customers achieve better outcomes and greater financial security in later life. Investments such as this can play an important role in delivering the resilient, long-term returns that underpin retirement savings and retirement income solutions. We believe this approach represents a scalable blueprint for future real asset investment, providing a repeatable framework to channel institutional capital into long-duration infrastructure assets with attractive risk-adjusted return characteristics.

- Head of Real Assets at Standard Life

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  • Rebecca O'Daly

    Rebecca O'Daly

    Public Relations Manager
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    07976111501

    Email

    rebecca.odaly@standardlife.com

About Standard Life

Standard Life is a retirement specialist focused entirely on retirement saving and income.

We are proud to manage £317bn in assets on behalf of our 12 million customers, and we champion the belief that everyone's journey to and through retirement can be better.

We offer our customers a broad range of retirement, investment and protection products across our customer brands which include Standard Life, SunLife, Phoenix Life and ReAssure

Our vision is to be the UK’s leading retirement savings and income business, building on Standard Life’s leadership positions in the workplace pensions, pension risk transfer and individual annuity markets, and our growing retail business. Our award-winning services are backed by industry leading apps and strong customer service.

 As a FTSE 100-listed group, we are using our size, expertise and influence to deliver better outcomes for customers.

We’ve set targets to help an additional three million customers take steps toward a better retirement by 2035. We want to play our part in delivering a net zero economy and managing our impact and dependency on nature to shape the world our customers will retire into.

Standard Life is recognised as a leading employer, with long-standing accreditation as a Living Wage Employer, Living Pension Employer and in 2026 became one of Britain’s Most Admired Companies.