London-headquartered investment fund GLIL Infrastructure has invested £150 million (US$206.48 million) into Flexion Energy, a “modern utility company and energy storage infrastructure specialist” which is aiming to build 1GW of energy storage in the UK over five years.
Formed by Dan Taylor and Hassen Bali as a joint venture (JV) with ion Ventures, a renewables and cleantech development and advisory company of which the pair are co-founders, Flexion is intending to develop, build, own and manage UK energy storage systems, with this new investment to enable it to construct and make operational an initial established pipeline of 300MW of grid-connected battery storage systems within the next 24 months.
Its focus will be on large-scale batteries connected to and serving the electricity grid for the entire 1GW, with Flexion being technology agnostic. It is therefore to take advantage of the continuing development of battery technology and innovation, according to Taylor and Bali, who have both been in the clean energy financing space for more than 10 years each. Between them their track record includes the development of over 200MW of energy storage assets, including the first Tesla grid-scale storage system in Europe.
Ion Ventures will provide development, operational and asset management services to Flexion as it develops this pipeline. Describing Flexion as bridging the gap between the development and financing of energy storage sites, Taylor and Bali said: “Public markets are already playing a big role in funding energy storage infrastructure, but the sector remains underserved and Flexion is seeking to address this.
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Meanwhile, the investment from GLIL is the eleventh the £2.5 billion infrastructure fund has made. Most recently, it acquired UK energy infrastructure provider Smart Meter Assets. Its other investments include equity stakes in Anglian Water, Clyde Windfarm, Forth Ports and two fleets of trains with Rock Rail among others.
The fund is backed by Local Pensions Partnership and Northern LGPS, and in April it was appointed as an infrastructure investment partner for government-established workplace pension provider Nest.
This story first appeared on Current±.
