Land investors Hallen Energy and Electric Land, who are part of French renewable energy firm Voltalia SA, have recently signed a lease to build a new 33MW battery storage facility near Bristol. Electric Land is part of Foundation Property & Capital Group, which is a London-based fund management business.
Voltalia already has 1.2GW of wind and solar power under construction or in operation, with a pipeline of 7.8GW. However, the new project will be Voltalia’s first battery storage undertaking in the UK.
The venture will contribute to battery storage in the Bristol area and will join the 15MW Lockleaze project. In 2017, when the Lockleaze project was first built, it was considered the UK’s largest stand-alone battery storage facility.
Voltalia’s project, which will be constructed at Avonmouth, is expected to advance the firm’s broader move into the energy division.
Ben Lansman, the Foundation Property’s managing director, said:
Since the launch of our first House fund in 2011, we have focused on niches where we can use our rare expertise in managing small, complex projects to generate a secure income return whilst focusing on creating significant capital value. Initially, that was primarily from convenience retailing, but for the last five years, it has also and increasingly been from energy infrastructure.
The UK has an increasing number of battery storage projects, with Voltalia’s new project being the latest. In 2019, the deployment of nearly 300MW of utility-scale battery storage led to a culmination of installations to more than 900MW by the end of last year. According to calculations from the UK Battery Storage Project, the total number of battery storage pipelines were placed at 13.5GW.
