UK firm Battery Energy Storage Solutions (BESS) has secured a further GBP28.5 million in funding towards becoming a key player in the domestic market.
The cash injection from Santander Corporate & Commercial comes just two months after BESS won a GBP50m investment from US private equity group Tiger Infrastructure Partners.
Santander’s director of infrastructure and renewable energy Mark Cumbo said the deal, which combines equity and Santander debt, means BESS is “now able to execute the strategy of becoming one of the UK’s largest independent owners and operators of battery storage asset portfolios, underpinned with contracts with the National Grid”.
BESS, which was formed in March 2017, aims to build and operate a portfolio of 100MW of grid scale battery storage assets by the end of this year.
As at the end of 2017, the company already owned and operated a 14MW portfolio of grid scale batteries either co-located with solar sites or connected directly into the distribution grid. BESS said a further 49MW of grid connected batteries will be up and running by the end of January 2018, bringing the total portfolio to 63MW across eight sites.
BESS co-founder James Basden (pictured) told BBB last November that plans for the company, which is to hold a formal launch in the first quarter of this year, include supporting behind-the-meter battery applications “with large scale industrial and commercial users of electricity”.
