1. Please describe your background and areas of focus.

I am a Managing Director at EQT Partners’ Infrastructure team, based in New York. EQT Infra invests in market-leading businesses across the transportation & logistics, energy & environmental, digital, and social sectors. I co-lead the Transportation & Logistics (“T&L”) sector in the US, where decarbonizing existing fleets at scale and scaling enabling infrastructure are big themes that we are investing behind.

Before EQT, I worked at Monomoy Capital Partners, a middle-market private equity fund that invests in manufacturing and distribution businesses across industrial and consumer end markets. I also spent some time in the Industrials investment banking group at Barclays, and in the secondaries fund of funds group at Morgan Stanley. I graduated from the Management& Technology (“M&T”) program at the University of Pennsylvania.

2. Why is the decarbonization of the transportation sector relevant and what excites you about it?

While the transport & logistics sector enables the efficient movement of people and freight in an increasingly connected world, it is unfortunately one of the largest contributors to carbon emissions.

However, several factors are driving the decarbonization of road freight transportation close to an inflection point: regulatory mandates together with an unprecedented level of government funding over the next decade across all aspects of the electric vehicle (“EV”) supply chain and enabling infrastructure, continued technological advancements, corporate commitments to reduce emissions, and growing consumer interest. When taken together, there is potential for these next few years to be a turning point in the history of transportation globally. To me, this is really exciting!

3. What is EQT’s approach to investing in decarbonizing the T&L industry?

We approach this in two ways: 1) gradually transitioning existing carbon-emitting fleets of scaled, market-leading businesses to battery electric / clean fuels, and 2) scaling enabling infrastructure to enable the transition. A good example of the first point is EQT Infra’s investment in First Student, the #1 student transportation provider to >1,000 K-12 public school districts in North America. In addition to its core infrastructure characteristics, transitioning a portion of the roughly 45,000 carbon-emitting school bus fleet to electric over time was central to our thesis. Not only are school buses a great use case for BEVs, but there is a $5Bn pool of federal funding through the Clean School Bus Program as part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law dedicated to helping the school bus industry transition, in addition to numerous state-level and utility-provided funding. Fast forward two years, and we are leading the school bus market with the largest deployment of electric buses in North America. We are doing something very similar with our portfolio company Nordic Ferry Infrastructure, a pan-Nordic ferry operator.

On the other hand, we are also actively investing in scaling enabling infrastructure, as we view this to be the biggest bottleneck to mass adoption of BEVs today and expect the fleet charging infrastructure market to grow by 15%+ through the next decade. An example of this is EQT Infra’s investment in Voltera, a developer, owner, and operator of high-voltage (5MW+) fleet charging solutions for autonomous, delivery & distribution, rental, and other types of commercial fleets under long-term contracts. Voltera began in 2022 as a spinout from EdgeConnex, our global data center business, under the premise that the automotive industry would be a key driver of edge computing with EV charging development benefitting from EdgeConnex’s core competencies – securing land and power. EQT Infra has also invested in Instavolt, the UK’s fastest-growing, leading independent fast-charging network operator.

4. What do you think are the largest obstacles facing a timely transition today?

The largest obstacle to decarbonizing light and medium-duty road freight transportation today is the sufficient availability of charging infrastructure at scale. In addition, the load placed on the grid by the adoption of BEVs will require continued development of utility-scale and distributed renewable power generation and storage, as well as demand response mechanisms to smooth grid volatility. This enabling infrastructure is investable today and presents more opportunity today than risk. On the other hand, hydrogen fuel for heavy-duty road freight and other modes of transportation that cannot be electrified, such as aviation and shipping, is farther out on the adoption curve due to nascent production of green hydrogen at scale, as well as storage, transportation, and enabling infrastructure bottlenecks that add to the significant costs. However, clear progress is being made and we should expect significant enhancements over the coming several years.