Arenko Group has agreed to sell its 41MW Bloxwich battery storage facility in the West Midlands to Gresham House Energy Storage Fund for £20.1 million.
The proceeds will be invested in the AI-driven automated trading software Arenko has developed to operate the battery – a role it will continue to fulfil following the sale.
The company says it was the first battery storage system to be autonomously traded in the balancing mechanism and last month began trading in the day-ahead power market as well. In May, National Grid Electricity System Operator started the trial of a new reserve service proposed by Arenko, with Bloxwich as the sole participant.
“This is a transformational deal for Arenko as it marks our transition from an asset owner to a software service provider,” founder and chief executive Rupert Newland said.
“Our ambition is to help multiple battery storage owners to fully optimise their asset performance by using our software. We see batteries and other flexible assets playing a meaningful role in the energy transition and believe intelligent AI software platforms will be a crucial enabler to unlock value from batteries globally.”
Ben Guest, fund manager at Gresham House Energy Storage Fund, said: “We are delighted to have completed this acquisition. Arenko is one of only a handful of innovative and technically-capable operators and optimisers of energy storage systems in the market, as demonstrated by their recent announcements.
“We look forward to working with them as the market burgeons in Great Britain.”
The acquisition brings Gresham House’s total operational battery portfolio to 215MW across ten sites.
The company is planning to grow the portfolio to 355MW by the end of 2020, acquiring 130MW across three new sites and increasing the capacity of its 40MW Glassenbury facility by 10MW. The commissioning of two 50MW projects at Wickham Market in Suffolk and Thurcroft in South Yorkshire has been delayed until the third quarter as a result of the coronavirus lockdown.
Chair of the Gresham House Energy Storage Fund, John Leggate, said: “Bloxwich is a further step forward in our ambitions to build Great Britain’s essential renewable power storage infrastructure. We’re pleased to welcome Arenko, as one of our partners, to support operational management and trading optimisation at Bloxwich.
“With the operational portfolio now over 200MW for the first time, we continue to make progress executing on our 2020 plan, and we look forward to updating our shareholders.”