LONDON: Gresham House Energy Storage Fund, the UK’s largest operational utility-scale battery storage fund, has completed its acquisition of the c.30MW battery project located near Wester Dechmont, Livingston in West Lothian, Scotland.
The Project was acquired for a total enterprise value of £15.6 million (plus up to £0.35 million of deferred contingent consideration) and is part of the pipeline described in the Fund’s Prospectus published on 10 November 2020.
Byers Brae is a battery-only site with a c.30MW/30MW export/import capacity which commenced commercial operations in March 2021.
Gresham House increases operational portfolio to 395MW
The Project is expected to generate revenues primarily from asset optimisation (whereby it imports and exports power to earn income from the wholesale market and the National Grid administered Balancing Mechanism), together with frequency response services. It is currently providing Dynamic Containment services, being a fast-acting frequency response service procured daily by National Grid, and currently remunerated at a premium to FFR.
The Project was acquired from Gresham House DevCo Limited and Noriker Power Ltd.
The acquisition increases the total capacity of operational utility-scale battery storage projects in the Fund’s investment portfolio to 425MW.
Ben Guest, Fund Manager and Head of Gresham House New Energy, said: “Byers Brae adds our first operational capacity in Scotland. Its location makes it well placed to ease system constraints arising from bottlenecks in the physical network between UK wind generation in the north and power demand in the south. The facility currently provides system flexibility via National Grid’s Dynamic Containment premium frequency response product.”
Utility-scale battery storage systems are the enabling infrastructure that will support the continued growth of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar, essential to the UK’s stated target to reduce carbon emissions. They store excess energy generated by renewable energy sources and then release that stored energy back into the grid during peak hours when there is increased demand for it.