Councils
Pools, depots and community buildings that carry growing energy costs and need power that stays on.
Distributed energy infrastructure · In formation
Patient capital for the energy regions run on.
DER Fund I is a fund in formation. It is intended to provide long-term capital for solar, battery and microgrid infrastructure on regional sites: the councils, farms, food producers and regional businesses too large for household rebates and too small for traditional infrastructure capital.
Conversations are for councils, site owners and project partners. This website is not an offer of, or invitation to apply for, a financial product.
The missing middle
Distributed energy is infrastructure.
The transition has been financed from the top down. Billions for the very large. Rebates for the very small.
The farms, councils and food producers in between have waited long enough.
DER Fund I is being set up to finance the middle, patiently, and with the discipline infrastructure deserves.
- Small · behind the meter
Households
Rebates, green loans and retailer offers.
- The missing middle
Councils, farms, food producers and regional businesses
Projects too large for rebates, too small for big infrastructure funds.
- Large · on the grid
Utility scale
Wind, solar farms and transmission, financed by institutional capital.
The idea
Infrastructure, distributed.
A toll road is one asset in one place. Distributed energy is hundreds of smaller ones: solar on sheds, batteries beside switchboards, microgrids on council depots. Assessed to one standard and held for the life of the asset, they become a single, productive infrastructure portfolio. One fund, many sites.
Dairy shed · Council depot · Cool store · Orchard · Pool plant · Food processor · Regional business
How it is intended to work
The site pays for energy. The fund owns the equipment.
Good regional energy projects tend to stall at the financing stage, not the engineering stage. The intended model separates the two.
- 01
A site has a reason
Rising tariffs, demand charges, network constraints or outages on long rural feeders.
- 02
Surge Energy designs the system
Solar, battery storage and controls, engineered to the site.
- 03
The fund is intended to own the assets
Each project is to be approved through the fund’s investment committee [composition to confirm].
- 04
The host pays for energy, not equipment
Under a long-term Energy-as-a-Service agreement with Surge Energy.
Who we work with
The sites the energy transition has skipped.
“We don’t want to become an energy company.” Under Energy-as-a-Service, they don’t have to.
Farms
Dairy sheds, irrigation and cold rooms on long rural lines, where an outage is an operational risk.
Food producers
Processors and cool stores that cannot afford a summer outage and would rather not tie up capital in energy hardware.
Regional businesses
Commercial sites with a roof, a load profile and a reason to act, but no wish to become an energy company.
Our partner
Named partner. Separate brand.
Surge Energy finds, designs, builds and runs the projects. DER Fund I is intended to provide the capital and own the assets. Surge Energy offers Energy-as-a-Service and microgrid solutions to councils, businesses, farms and food producers in regional Australia.
For a site, the conversation starts with Surge Energy. The fund sits behind it.
How we intend to behave
Five values that settle real decisions.
Disciplined capital, deployed into real assets, reported with candour.
- Discipline
- Every dollar deployed against a written thesis and clear approval criteria. Projects that miss the criteria are declined.
- Stewardship
- Maintenance, insurance and end-of-life planned from day one. No host left with equipment nobody is responsible for.
- Alignment
- The Surge Energy relationship disclosed early and plainly, never hidden in footnotes.
- Candour
- What is going well and what is not, reported at the same time and in the same tone.
- Regional commitment
- The regions are where the assets live, not a backdrop. Local installers where viable; showing up in person.
Where things stand
A fund in formation.
DER Fund I has not been offered to anyone. Its structure, trustee, licensing arrangements and documents are still being finalised, and nothing on this website is an offer of, or invitation to apply for, a financial product.
If you are asking about investing, please don’t send personal or financial details through this site. Read the important information.
- Structure and trustee[to confirm]
- Licensing arrangement[to confirm]
- Disclaimer wording[to confirm]
- Investment committee[to confirm]
Have a regional site that needs capital for energy?
Councils, site owners and project partners: start with a conversation.