Gresham House to raise £150mn to fund energy storage

Gresham House Energy Storage Fund is seeking to raise £150mn to develop utility-scale battery energy storage systems.

In a stock market statement, Gresham will raise the funding through the issuing of new Ordinary Shares at a Placing Price of 145p, and the initial placing closes at 3pm Thursday (UK time).

The company intends to increase the size of its portfolio by acquiring an existing pipeline of 747MW of battery energy storage system projects in the UK and Ireland for which due diligence is well under way for 647MW of this capacity.

Assuming the existing pipeline is fully commissioned, the portfolio is expected to grow to 1,597MW of operational capacity.

John Leggate CBE, Chair of Gresham House Energy Storage Fund, said the substantial growth of solar and wind power, backed by the strategic imperative of energy security and the zero-carbon energy transition, underpins its core investment strategy.

"Growing renewables deployment increases the pressure on power grids to deliver reliable power for which battery storage has the immediate capability and flexibility to achieve," he said.

Ben Guest, Lead Fund Manager and Head of Gresham House New Energy, said power price volatility is a fundamental feature of grid-connected renewable energy power systems.

"We have designed our battery energy storage systems to effectively capture the growing trading opportunity as renewables generation increases," he said.

"With our scale, disciplined cost management and performance of our assets, we have been able to deliver strong returns to date. We plan to significantly increase GRID’s Portfolio over the next two years by adding a further 10 projects totalling 747MW, including some of the industry’s largest batteries to date."

Vistra brings Texas' largest battery energy storage system online

Vistra's DeCordova Energy Storage Facility in Granbury, Texas, is now online and storing and releasing electricity to the ERCOT grid in time for another hot Texas summer. The 260MW-hour battery energy storage project is the largest of its kind in the Lone Star State.

First announced in September 2020, DeCordova is the second of seven new zero-carbon projects Vistra is bringing online in Texas over the next few years as part of its growing Vistra Zero portfolio. These new power generation facilities represent a nearly $1bn capital investment by the company within the Texas ERCOT market.

"As our fleet and electric grids across the country transition to cleaner generation, we haven't lost sight of our essential role in providing reliable, affordable electricity," said Curt Morgan, CEO of Vistra. 

"The battery storage technology at DeCordova accomplishes those objectives – providing instantaneous-start, dispatchable generation to help balance the intermittency of renewable energy as the electric grid transitions to low-to-zero-carbon resources."