Canadian pension fund invests US$25m in compressed air storage provider Hydrostor

LinkedIn
Twitter
Reddit
Facebook
Email

Compressed air long-duration energy storage solution provider Hydrostor has received an investment commitment of US$25 million from Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP).

The announcement comes three months after Hydrostor, which is also Canada-based, bagged a US$250 million investment from Goldman Sachs.

Hydrostor said the money raised from CPP will support its strategy of developing, constructing, and operating advanced compressed air energy storage (A-CAES) facilities. It currently has one commercially operating 2.2MW/10MWh+ system which came online in 2019 in Ontario, but claims 1.1GW/8.7GWh of projects are underway in Australia and California.

Bruce Hogg, Managing Director, Head of Sustainable Energies, CPP Investments, said: “Long-duration energy storage is a critical component in the decarbonisation of electrical grids. Hydrostor’s solutions are well-placed to address this growing need and provide a unique investment opportunity aligned with our focus on the energy evolution.”

This article requires Premium SubscriptionBasic (FREE) Subscription

Enjoy 12 months of exclusive analysis

Not ready to commit yet?
  • Regular insight and analysis of the industry’s biggest developments
  • In-depth interviews with the industry’s leading figures
  • Annual digital subscription to the PV Tech Power journal
  • Discounts on Solar Media’s portfolio of events, in-person and virtual

Or continue reading this article for free

CPP manages a fund from the pension contributions of 21 million people into the Canada Pension Plan. Its managed fund totalled C$550 billion (US$440 billion) as of end-2021.

It has invested in around 18 companies it classifies as Sustainable Energies within its Real Assets portfolio, including UK-based sustainable energy group Octopus Energy which it invested in late last year. The Hydrostor investment is at the very low end in terms of deal size within this classification for CPP, with the smallest deal sizes disclosed in its existing portfolio standing at a little over US$200 million.

Hydrostor believes it can get its three projects totalling 8.7GWh of storage in California and Australia built by 2026 but needs regulators elsewhere to remove barriers to A-CAES, its CEO Curtis VanWalleghem told Energy-storage.news in January.

All of its current planned systems are eight-hour durations partially because that is the threshold for capacity auctions in California, for example, but VanWalleghem said that A-CAES systems can scale fairly simply. Several high-profile sources have told Energy-storage.news that lithium-ion is now competitive at that sort of duration and even higher.

For A-CAES, Hydrostor expects half of revenues to come from capacity contracts with most of the remainder from arbitrage and a small amount of ancillary services.

23 September 2025
Warsaw, Poland
The Energy Storage Summit Central Eastern Europe is set to return in September 2025 for its third edition, focusing on regional markets and the unique opportunities they present. This event will bring together key stakeholders from across the region to explore the latest trends in energy storage, with a focus on the increasing integration of energy storage into regional grids, evolving government policies, and the growing need for energy security.

Read Next

August 29, 2025
The Australian government has opened two CIS tenders in Western Australia, targeting 2.4GWh of energy storage and 1.6GW of renewables.
August 29, 2025
Potentia Energy, a joint venture co-owned by Enel Green Power and INPEX, has secured the first environmental approval for a grid-scale battery energy storage system (BESS) under South Australia’s new Hydrogen and Renewable Energy (HRE) Act.
August 29, 2025
French independent power producer (IPP) Neoen, which is now fully owned by Canadian investment firm Brookfield, has switched on the second phase of its 560MW/2,240MWh Collie BESS in Western Australia.
Premium
August 28, 2025
Energy-Storage.news Premium speaks with Sergio Melendez, storage sector manager at CAISO, and Ali Karimian, market optimisation director at GridBeyond, about regulating Bid Cost Recovery Payments in the California Independent System Operator market.
August 28, 2025
California utility Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) has pushed back recommissioning of the Elkhorn battery energy storage system (BESS) by approximately one year, to 30 June 2026.

Most Popular

Email Newsletter