US private equity group Tiger Infrastructure Partners has led a GBP50 million ($66.5m) investment in UK firm Battery Energy Storage Solutions (BESS).
BESS director James Basden (pictured) told BBB the company would use the equity raise to boost grid-scale battery storage and develop “behind-the-meter opportunities”.
Basden, who co-founded BESS in July, was coy about discussing plans in detail— which he said would be revealed in a formal launch of the company “in the first quarter” of 2018.
However, Basden said BESS is already on course to expand its existing 14MW UK lithium-ion battery storage portfolio to more than 60MW by the end of this year.
London-based BESS currently owns and operates five sites that are either co-located with solar power plants or connected directly into distribution grids.
The increased capacity will come from two new storage facilities currently under construction in England— a 20MW battery in Cambridgeshire and a 29MW facility in Kent.
“Both projects are standalone sites providing backup, storage and frequency balancing,” Basden said.
Basden said the capital raised through New York-based Tiger, which specialises in investments in sectors including energy in North America and Europe, “has demonstrated the credibility of our battery storage proposition”.
“It now enables BESS to pursue the acquisition of grid-scale projects at the right locations,” Basden said. “We also want to support behind-the-meter battery applications with large scale industrial and commercial users of electricity.”
