Published: 13 May 2021, 12:04
Gore Street’s Drumkee battery, which has been operational since March. Image: Gore Street Energy Storage Fund.
Gore Street Energy Storage Fund has acquired an 80MW energy storage project from RES, having also entered into exclusivity with the renewable energy company for over 300MW of assets.
The 80MW project – located in Milton Keynes – is construction ready, with all land rights, grid connections and planning consents having already been secured.
Gore Street is expecting the total capex of the project to be c.£30 million spread over the next 12 – 15 months, with the asset scheduled to become operational in Q1 2023, although the company is exploring timeline optimisation to potentially bring this forward.
This acquisition was funded by the net proceeds of a £135 million fundraise in April, which is also going to Gore Street’s 1.3GW development pipeline. The new acquisition comes as the company also announces exclusivity of over 300MW of project that are currently in due diligence and which come from “leading developers”.
Alongside the announcement of this new asset, the company also gave information relating to its existing portfolio. This largely surrounded its trading strategies, with Gore Street detailing how during Q1 2021 it paused Dynamic Containment strategies on certain assets for short periods of time to capture what it said were particularly high trading revenues available in the market.
While it said that grid balancing contracts are currently more profitable than trading most of the time, it has demonstrated its ability to pariticpate across different markets and opportunistically capture market prices when attractive it said.
The company also made reference to the 12 month extension granted by EirGrid in March to the DS3 contracts in Ireland, with this expected to provide significant additional revenue generation for all of Gore Street’s sites located in the country, including the Mullavilly and Drumkee batteries which have been operational since March 2021.
Alex O’Cinneide, CEO of Gore Street Capital, said that the company’s portfolio – standing at 520MW including the increases to both Porterstown and Kilmannock – is the largest available to a financial investor and “one which has the youngest portfolio of assets, and most cost-effective acquisition history in the market”.
“This latest project again highlights the strength of our management team in being able to identify and secure exclusivity on important infrastructure assets at extremely competitive pricing, through our active asset management approach.”