Asset management firm Gresham House’s energy storage fund has purchased a 5MW battery project in Wolverhampton for a total of £3.5 million.
The project, acquired from a vehicle owned by Gresham House DevCo Limited and Noriker Power Limited, primarily imports and exports power for the wholesale market and the balancing mechanism.
The acquisition increases the total capacity of operational utility-scale battery storage projects in the fund’s investment portfolio to 75MW.
Earlier this year the asset management company announced that it had raised £15.3 million through a second share issue for its newly-formed energy storage fund.
A total of 14.6 million shares were sold at a price of 105p each. The fund has now secured £164 million from investors, including £100 million from its initial public offering in the second half of 2018.
Ben Guest, head of Gresham House New Energy, said: “We are pleased to have completed our investment in Wolverhampton. Utility-scale battery storage is crucial to a renewable energy future in the UK and has significant potential from an investment standpoint.
“Our team’s unique experience of developing and operating utility-scale battery storage assets, coupled with the fund’s pipeline of projects, will be able to deliver excellent shareholder value in what is a rapidly emerging next generation infrastructure sector.
“We are determined to be part of this revolution that will contribute significantly towards a low carbon economy and are focused on successfully developing our remaining pipeline of utility-scale battery storage projects over the coming months.”
Gresham said it expects to acquire a further 49MW capacity asset by the end of the year, with two further utility-scale battery storage assets of 100MW capacity in total are expected to commence construction imminently.
The fund is eventually aiming to raise £200 million in total and may issue as many as 36 million additional shares by 16 October over multiple placings.
Gresham is expected to have 229MW in operation by the end of Q1 2020.