Gresham House Energy Storage Fund plc (LON:GRID), the UK’s largest operational utility-scale battery storage fund, has completed its investment in the 50MW battery project located near Wickham Market, Suffolk. Wickham follows GRID’s recent acquisition of the Thurcroft project and was acquired for a total enterprise value of £32.75 million (plus up to £0.75 million of deferred contingent consideration).
Wickham is a battery-only site with c.50MW/40MW export/import capacity, and 74MWh storage capacity. It is connected to the distribution network and the commissioning tests have now been successfully completed. The Project is expected to generate its revenues from trading whereby it imports and exports power in order to earn income from the wholesale market, and from National Grid’s FFR tenders and Balancing Mechanism. Since energisation, this asset has also provided frequency response capacity under the new Dynamic Containment service procured by National Grid.
The Project has been acquired from Gresham House Devco Limited and Noriker Power Ltd.
Current Portfolio
The acquisition increases the total capacity of the 12 operational utility-scale battery storage projects in the Fund’s investment portfolio to 315MW.
| Project | Location | MW |
| Staunch | Staffordshire | 20 |
| Rufford | Nottinghamshire | 7 |
| Lockleaze | Bristol | 15 |
| Littlebrook | Kent | 8 |
| Roundponds | Wiltshire | 20 |
| Wolverhampton | West Midlands | 5 |
| Glassenbury | Kent | 40 |
| Cleator Moor | Cumbria | 10 |
| Red Scar | Lancashire | 49 |
| Bloxwich | West Midlands | 41 |
| Thurcroft | South Yorkshire | 50 |
| Wickham | Suffolk | 50 |
| Total | 315 |
John Leggate CBE, Chair of Gresham House Energy Storage Fund plc said:
“The addition of Wickham boosts GRID’s operational capacity by nearly 20%, just weeks after the Thurcroft facility began supplying balancing services to National Grid. These two utility-scale power storage units are among the largest facilities in the UK and will deliver significant incremental revenues to support our target returns. This is clearly a material contribution to enhancing the stability of the grid, and also supports the acceleration of the expansion of UK’s renewable power generation fleet”.
Ben Guest, Fund Manager of Gresham House Energy Storage Fund plc said:
“We are delighted to complete this acquisition so soon after our successful fundraising, allowing the team to focus efforts on our pipeline opportunities.”
