Battery Energy Storage Solutions (BESS), an investor and would-be asset owner in the UK, has raised more than £50 million (US$66.18 million) of outside investment, setting its sights on making energy storage project acquisitions in Britain.
Today BESS revealed that it had raised the finance through a £50 million equity investment from a group of investors led by Tiger Infrastructure Partners, a New York-based investment firm dedicated to the communications, energy and transport sectors.
The company said the investment would be used to build on its portfolio of grid-scale battery storage sites and fulfil a pipeline of behind the meter opportunities, insisting it was on the hunt to acquire new projects directly from developers.
It expects its portfolio to consist of more than 60MW of battery storage by the end of the year.
BESS co-founder James Basden said the equity investment demonstrates the “credibility” of its storage proposition.
“[The investment] now enables BESS to pursue the acquisition of grid-scale projects at the right locations. We also want to support behind-the-meter battery applications with large scale industrial and commercial users of electricity,” he added.
The deal is yet another sign of the growing confidence in and investment appetite for battery energy storage in the UK. At the start of the year a raft of solar investors surmised that while the technology was of interest the market and business models were not yet mature enough to warrant investment.
But the year has been littered with deals for energy storage assets, albeit those are backed up lucrative contracts. Foresight took on two (Enhanced Frequency Response) EFR-backed storage assets, which was followed by TRIG acquiring a 20MW asset from RES.