The UK market’s shifting dynamics see listed fund Gore Street’s shareholders take key vote while Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners and BW ESS have made progress on 4-hour duration battery storage assets at significant scale.
Gore Street Energy Storage Fund stays private after shareholder vote
Gore Street Energy Storage Fund’s shareholders voted not to take the fund private at its annual general meeting (AGM) in September.
The AGM on 16 September saw a close vote on a resolution put forward by the firm’s biggest shareholder Saba Capital Management: that Gore Street Energy Storage Fund (GSF) not continue in its existence as an investment company following “sustained underperformance” in the fund’s value. The vote fell at 45 for and 55 against.
It brings to a close a period of uncertainty about the future of UK listed energy storage funds, with the Gresham House Energy Storage Fund (GRID) having quashed calls to sell shortly before.
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There has been a prolonged slump in share prices for both funds, owned by investment firms Gresham House and Gore Street Capital.
It was the same story at the Harmony Energy Income Trust (HEIT), the board of which took the decision to sell and de-list to asset manager Foresight Group in early 2025, at a significant premium to the share price it had been trading at.
In GSF’s case, the board noted that the vote was close, saying it is “therefore cognisant of the range of views expressed, particularly from the company’s largest shareholder, and will seek to engage to establish a productive way forward for the company and all shareholders so that ongoing disruption can be avoided in the interest of best delivering enhanced value”.
Its current plans are to stick with a strategy announced after its underperformance was first flagged. GSF expects to augment and build roughly 100MWh of projects in FY2026-27 and 2027-28, and another 150MWh in 2028-29. It said that its board “recognises that the change in the macro environment necessitates this evolution to its buy-and-hold strategy.”
By Molly Green.
This story first appeared on Solar Power Portal.
Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners begins construction at 1.4GWh site
Investor and asset manager Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP) has announced its fourth large-scale BESS in Scotland, with double the duration it has deployed so far. CIP has taken a €270 million (£232 million) final investment decision on the Kilmarnock South battery energy storage system (BESS).
It will have a power rating of 350MW and an energy storage capacity of 1,400MWh, making it a 4-hour system. The project is in South Ayrshire and is already under construction, with commercial operations set for Q1 2028.
The investment is being made through CIP’s Copenhagen Infrastructure IV (CI IV) fund. Noriker Power developed the project.
It is not the first 4-hour BESS project in the UK, but most likely the largest of this scale to have entered construction. In June this year, when owner-operator Zenobē reached financial close for its 200MW/800MWh Coalburn BESS project, the company said it was the first UK transmission-scale 4-hour BESS to reach financial close. It is due to come online in 2028, following grid connection delays.
The longer duration illustrates the wider trend in the UK of ancillary service market saturation and the subsequent move to multi-market optimisation, where BESS increasingly participate in day-ahead, intra-day and balancing mechanism (BM) markets. All of these require longer durations than ancillary services.
Shell will optimise the project for CIP under a deal which includes contracted revenues, most likely a floor agreement (the most common in the UK).
Its previous projects have been three 500MW/1GWh systems also in Scotland, the Coalburn 1, Coalburn 2 and Devilla projects.
By Cameron Murray.
To read the full version of this story, visit Solar Power Portal.
BW ESS, Dankse Commodities sign optimisation deal for 200MW, 4-hour asset
Global energy storage owner-operator BW ESS and Danske Commodities have agreed a 10-year optimisation agreement covering 100% of a 200MW/857MWh BESS in the Midlands.
Energy trader Danske Commodities will provide trading and optimisation services for the Berkswell battery energy storage system (BESS) under the floor agreement. The project is currently under construction and has been developed from greenfield origination by BW ESS, co-owned by investor AIP Management.
BW ESS’ Berkswell project is expected to come online in Q4 2027. It will use Sungrow’s PowerTitan 3 technology.
A comparable announcement of a 10-year tolling agreement between Statkraft and Greenvolt Power covering two 4-hour, 200MW/800MWh systems in Poland was described by Greenvolt as the largest publicly communicated BESS tolling deal in the EU to date.
By Molly Green.
To read the full version of this story, visit Solar Power Portal.
