Partners Group to acquire majority stake in AVK Power

• Partners Group plans to invest more than $1bn in AVK’s growth, with management retaining a minority stake
• The deal aims to build AVK into an energy-as-a-service infrastructure platform anchored by microgrids
• AVK holds a pipeline of more than 2GW of behind-the-meter power opportunities across Europe

Partners Group has agreed to acquire a majority stake in AVK Power Solutions, a UK-headquartered provider of power systems for data centers and AI infrastructure. Partners Group is making the investment on behalf of its clients, and AVK’s management team will retain a minority stake.

Partners Group plans to initially invest more than $1 billion of equity, supplemented by debt financing, to accelerate AVK’s growth.

AVK designs, installs and maintains power infrastructure for data centers, with a focus on back-up generators, bespoke behind-the-meter turnkey energy systems including microgrids, and modular electrical power units. The company also offers hybrid systems that can run on biogas, biofuel and hydrogen. AVK has delivered more than 20,000 projects and installed approximately 3.5GW of power to date, and is active across the “FLAP-D” markets of Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Paris and Dublin, as well as emerging European growth markets.

Total installed data center capacity in Europe has risen rapidly in recent years, driven by accelerating cloud adoption and AI-related compute demand as well as policy initiatives supporting data sovereignty, according to the announcement. The region continues to face grid congestion, with connections in FLAP-D markets taking between seven and 15 years, a bottleneck that AVK’s on-site power generation is intended to address.

Alongside management, Partners Group aims to transform AVK into an infrastructure platform delivering long-term energy-as-a-service contracts to data centers, principally through microgrids. This will involve AVK continuing to build and own power assets and securing long-term offtake agreements with data center operators and customers. AVK has an advanced pipeline of more than 2GW of behind-the-meter power opportunities across Europe.

Partners Group has built experience in decentralized energy in Europe through its investments in Gren and Eteck, as well as in data centers through the scaling and exit of the pan-Nordic platform atNorth. The firm has also invested in behind-the-meter turnkey energy providers for data centers in the US through its 2025 acquisition of Life Cycle Power.

“AI is driving one of the largest infrastructure buildouts in decades, and access to power is becoming a defining constraint,” said Nicholas Pepper, managing director, infrastructure at Partners Group, in the statement. “This constraint and lengthening connection queues are critical bottlenecks to growth in the European data center market, which on-site generation can alleviate by accelerating speed-to-power.”

Partners Group is investing through its fourth direct infrastructure program, which recently closed at more than $15 billion; the firm has more than $40 billion in assets under management across its infrastructure business. Partners Group was advised by A&O Shearman, PwC, EY, Altman Solon, Arcadis and Clifford Chance on the transaction.

Editor’s note: This news brief was produced with the assistance of artificial intelligence.