Danish labour-market pensions firm PKA is investing around DKK350m (€47m) in two natural gas power plants and a portfolio of onshore wind turbines in Ireland and Northern Ireland.

PKA, which runs three pension funds in the social and healthcare sectors, said it was co-investing in the assets alongside global infrastructure manager I Squared Capital, in which it already invests.

Peter Damgaard Jensen, chief executive at PKA, said: “We have been focusing on making more co-investments for a long time because this way we can save some external manager costs.”

PKA said it had made eight co-investments in the last 24 months with a number of leading private equity funds.

Apart from saving costs, this latest investment will allow PKA to achieve a good return and play an active role in the transition to green energy, Damgaard Jensen said.

The Irish power installations provide electricity for more than 60,000 businesses and 600,000 households, PKA said.

The Irish infrastructure deal is the second co-investment it has done with I Squared Capital, the first being in 2015.

This previous co-investment was in the construction of the Oregon Clean Energy natural gas-fired power plant in the US, in which PKA invested about DKK330m.

PKA has total assets of around DKK235bn and green investments of about DKK17bn.