Gresham House Energy Storage Fund has had a busy year with a strong pipeline of acquisitions and investments yet to follow.
Gresham House Energy Storage Fund PLC has acquired two operational battery storage facilities from VLC Energy for £29.2 million, VLC Energy is a joint venture between Low Carbon and VPI Immingham, a subsidiary of Vitol Group.
This includes a 40MW facility in Glassenbury, Kent, and a 10MW facility in Cleator Moor, Cumbria. The facilities are backed by 30-year site leases, of which 28 years are remaining. The sites are some of the biggest grid storage facilities in the UK, Gresham said, and both are operating on Enhanced Frequency Response (EFR) contracts to January 2022 that were awarded in the National Grid’s 2016 EFR auction. The two sites represent a quarter of the 2016 EFR capacity.
The acquisition increases the total capacity of operational utility-scale battery storage projects in the fund’s portfolio to 125MW. This will further increase to 174MW when the previously announced acquisition of the 49MW project, located at the Red Scar Business Park, is completed and the site connected to the grid.
Alongside acquisitions such as Red Scar, it signed a contract with KiWi Power for the optimisation of its 15MW Lockleaze battery in Bristol. It also acquired a 5% stake in Noriker for £400,000.
Gresham House Energy Storage also said it expects to acquire a further three projects, comprising two of 50 megawatts each and the Littlebrook extension of 5 megawatts in the “coming months”.
This will see the company’s total operational portfolio increase to 279 megawatts.
“We are delighted to follow our successful £41.6million fundraise in October with the acquisition of these operational facilities from VLC Energy.
John Leggate, Chairman of Gresham House Energy Storage
The fund completed its latest fundraising drive in October, raising £41.6 million but falling short of the £58 million it originally targeted.
Gresham House Energy Storage Fund shares (LON:GRID) are trading at 107.49 pence each.
