Gresham House Acquires 30MW Scottish Battery

Gresham House Energy Storage Fund has completed its acquisition of a 30MW battery project in Scotland, its first operational facility in the country.

The Byers Brae energy storage installation, located near Wester Dechmont, Livingston in West Lothian, was acquired for a total enterprise value of £15.6m (plus up to £350,000 of deferred contingent consideration) from Gresham House DevCo Limited and Noriker Power.

The project forms part of the pipeline described in the fund’s prospectus published on 10 November 2020.

Byers Brae is a battery-only site with a 30MW/30MW export/import capacity which commenced commercial operations in March 2021.

The battery will generate revenues primarily from imports and exports of power to the wholesale market and the National Grid ESO-administered Balancing Mechanism, together with frequency response services.

The battery is providing Dynamic Containment services, being a fast-acting frequency response service procured daily by National Grid.

The acquisition increases the total capacity of operational utility-scale battery storage projects in the fund's investment portfolio to 425MW.

Ben Guest, fund manager and head of Gresham House New Energy, said: “Byers Brae adds our first operational capacity in Scotland.

“Its location makes it well placed to ease system constraints arising from bottlenecks in the physical network between UK wind generation in the north and power demand in the south.

“The facility currently provides system flexibility via National Grid’s Dynamic Containment premium frequency response product.”