UK battery storage investor Gresham House Energy Storage Fund (LON:GRID) has said the industry is “back on track” as trading conditions improved, particularly in December.
The UK’s largest fund specialising in battery energy storage systems (BESS) highlighted improvements in service by the UK government’s National Energy System Operator (NESO) as well as its renewed commitment to to the sector as part of clean power aims by 2030.
It also revealed that revenues exceeding £60,000 per MW of electricity its facilities provided in the second half of 2024 meant it would meet or even exceed revenue targets.
This comes after the fund said it had faced a “weak revenue environment” in the first part of the year. In April it reported a £110 million loss compared to a £217m profit the previous year and paused dividends.
Fund manager Ben Guest said the organisation was “working hard” on refinancing and a plan to “re-instate dividend payments”.
In a further update, the fund said its 40MW BESS project at Shilton Lane, 11 miles from Glasgow, was fully built and in the final stages of the NESO compliance process which expected to complete in February 2025.
Fund chair John Leggate welcomed “solid progress” in company’s performance, “as well as improvements in NESO’s control room, and commitment to further change, that should see BESS increasingly well utilised”.
He added: “We thank our shareholders for their patience as the battery storage industry gets back on track with the most environmentally appropriate and economically competitive energy storage technology (Li-ion) being properly prioritised.
“Alongside NESO’s backing of BESS, it is encouraging to see the government’s endorsement of a level playing field for battery storage – the only proven, commercially viable technology that can dynamically manage renewable intermittency at national scale.”
Guest, who in addition to managing the fund is also the managing director of Gresham House New Energy, said: “We have worked hard to highlight the industry’s issues; we are relieved to see NESO’s acceptance of these issues and appreciate the NESO team’s significant efforts to address them. There is more work to be done, and we look forward to seeing further progress.
“We are now working hard on our refinancing to drive growth in the business and re-instate dividend payments.
“Our three-year plan involves project augmentations, new pipeline and accessing the new revenue streams which are becoming available as the industry matures. We look forward to sharing progress on this in the near future.”
