Developers Acacia, Green Tower and Eren Industries have partnered to develop and build 500MW of standalone BESS in France.
Eren Industries has joined an existing partnership between Acacia and Green Tower to deploy battery energy storage system (BESS) projects in France, the company said last week (5 June). The announcement indicated this is Eren investing in an existing platform developed by Acacia and Green Tower.
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Some 200MW of the capacity is about to begin construction while 300MW is in advanced development.
Acacia is a BESS developer founded in 2022 by president Julien Isambert (founder of the engineering firm Jigrid), CEO Kevin Le Tenoux and Green Tower. Green Tower is the developer and investor arm of the Green Giraffe Group, a financial advisory firm.
Eren Industries is part of the Eren group, active in project development within various energy transition technologies but, it appears, not renewable energy generation. Eren’s solar, wind and hydro development arm Total Eren was sold to oil and gas major TotalEnergies, initially via a minority stake with an outright acquisition in 2023, covered by our colleages at PV Tech.
Advisors and due diligence providers on the transaction were Afry, Aurora, BCTG Avocats, Jeantet, Afry, HCO Expert and Green Giraffe.
Henri Gouzerh, managing director of Green Tower, “Since the creation of Acacia alongside Julien and Kevin, we have shared a common ambition: to foster the emergence of a pioneer in energy storage in France. Today, we are very pleased to welcome Eren and grateful for their trust.
Compared to other major European economies, France has a relatively smaller grid-scale BESS pipeline forecasted to come online over the course of this decade, at least according to research firm LCP Delta. Part of this may be down to its nuclear generation mix, which the government has said will provide half of its energy needs in the long-term, with more plants set to be built.
There are still enough energy trading and ancillary service opportunities to support the deployment of some large-scale BESS, with several announcements in 2024.
Developers GazelEnergie and Q Energy commissioned a 35MW/44MWh BESS in December, while in the preceding few months Harmony Energy sold a 100MW/200MWh project to Alpiq and started building a separate one of the same size. The larges project in construction is a 240MW/480MWh one being built by TagEnergy with Tesla Megapacks.
In a recent article for our quarterly journal, PV Tech Power (Vol.42), analyst Rachel Locquet at energy storage consultancy Clean Horizon noted that France was third for operational BESS capacity in Europe by country, behind the UK and Germany in first and second place, respectively.
However, based on Clean Horizon’s analysis of publicly announced but not yet built projects, Locquet’s article was in agreement with LCP Delta’s take that the development pipeline lags behind much of Europe. Locquet’s full article, available to ESN Premium subscribers, detailed the revenue case and business models for storage in five key European markets, including France.
