Arclight Capital Partners has committed US$150 million to its energy storage platform Elevate Renewable Energy for deploying battery storage alongside its legacy thermal plant portfolio.
Arclight formed Elevate in 2022 to develop and install utility-scale battery energy storage systems co-located with existing power infrastructure.
Elevate’s initial focus is on projects co-located with Arclight’s portfolio which totals around 25GW, mostly legacy thermal plants, particularly in US electricity markets where renewable deployments have created a need for grid flexibility services.
Elevate’s head of development Eric Cherniss spent three years at US utility Vistra, during which time the company developed the 1,200MWh Moss Landing project, the largest battery system in the world which has since expanded to 1,600MWh, and the 260MWh Decordova project, the largest in Texas. Arclight said he was closely involved in both projects.
Boston-headquartered Arclight said in June last year that its thermal plant powerfolio comprises excellent potential locations for battery storage projects. That coincided with one of its portfolio vehicles Eastern Generation getting approval to deploy a 135MW battery unit at the Astoria plant in New York, pictured above.
Co-located renewable projects with legacy plants and their substantial existing grid infrastructure is an effective way to get around grid connection bottlenecks, one of the main causes of delays to new projects. And as with any co-location, pairing two different assets also provides significant savings on security, monitoring and maintenance costs.
Arclight has also invested in the standalone renewables space, including the acquisition of a set of wind farms and energy storage totalling 80MWh in the service territory of grid operator PJM in August last year.
“ArcLight is one of the largest power producers in the United States today, and this investment further builds upon and will benefit from our extensive track record within the power infrastructure and renewable infrastructure sectors,” said Dan Revers, Managing Partner at ArcLight Capital.
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