The opportunities for energy storage in the US continue to grow and grow, but moving away from contracted revenue structures to merchant risk projects will be a challenge, especially for lenders. 

In just the past few days, nearly US$500 million has been committed to downstream activity in the battery energy storage space, with AES Distributed Energy raising US$341 million of debt financing and EsVolta US$140 million of borrowing.

Energy asset developer and owner Statera Energy has clinched a refinancing deal for its 50MW Pelham utility-scale battery storage plant in England, in a transaction which it says demonstrates both the maturity and “bankability” of the asset class.

Barclays has voiced the opinion that solar PV-generated energy coupled with storage presents a long term disruptive risk to electric utilities in the US, as it was reported the bank’s investment arm had downgraded the entire electric sector of the US high grade corporate bond market.