From Real Estate to Real Assets: Infrastructure in the spotlight

Key takeaways

Traditional commercial real estate investors are widening their universe to other real assets, with infrastructure, and particularly energy, increasing in prominence as a complementary strategy. This drive is underpinned by global megatrends converging with the search for resilient, diversified income streams as investors seek to hedge energy risk for their buildings, capture new return profiles, and position for long-term structural change.

US$289bn
Record infrastructure fundraising in 2025

Unlisted private infrastructure funds raised almost US$300 billion in 2025, according to Infrastructure Investor, surpassing previous peaks and signalling strong appetite for the sector (page 3). Renewable-focused funds dominated with 44-64% of sector-specific funds raised over the past five years.

24%
Share of real estate investors targeting infrastructure exposure by the end of 2026

Energy security has become central to both property operations and investment strategy, with real estate capital increasingly seeking infrastructure exposure as a complementary strategy. A quarter of respondents by number to our Global Active Capital Survey, more than a third by AUM, have or aim to have exposure by the end of 2026 (page 4).

280
UK renewable transactions in 2025, dominated by solar and storage

The UK recorded over 280 renewable transactions in 2025 across M&A and project finance, according to Clean Energy Pipeline data, demonstrating depth of the market. Solar made up 40% of M&A deals by number, while storage represented the largest share of total megawatts transacted (page 5).

160%
Forecast growth in UK data‑centre electricity demand by 2030

Digital workloads, AI adoption and transportation are reshaping power markets. NESO expects UK data-centre electricity demand to rise 160% by 2030, while EV demand is set to increase more than 300%, potentially intensifying the premium on grid-resilient, low-carbon energy powered real estate (page 6).

£199 million
Average renewable energy transaction

Compared with real estate, energy infrastructure investments are generally characterised by larger deal sizes. The average renewable energy project M&A transaction in the past five years stood at £199 million, according to Clean Energy Pipeline data. Whilst not directly comparable, the five-year average UK commercial real estate transaction, was £45 million, according to MSCI/RCA data. As such, four in five of the Survey investors planning infrastructure allocations expect to use joint ventures or capital-partnering routes, underlining the importance of specialist collaboration for scale and capability (page 7).

7‑11%
Average levered discount rates for UK listed renewable energy

There is a clear bias towards Core strategies, with around half of the planned capital allocation expected to be directed this way, across both real estate and infrastructure. Listed renewable funds, which are typically skewed towards Core assets, offer a real-time public benchmark for risk and return, with levered discount rates in the 8-11% range at the end of 2025 (page 7). With variation by technology, as well as premiums for development and construction-phase assets, there is a clear, investable gradient of risk and return across strategies.