Aware Super has joined a consortium which will invest more than $1 billion to develop grid scale battery storage assets in the UK.
Aware Super and the UK’s sovereign wealth fund, the National Wealth Fund (NWF), are supporting leading European mid-market infrastructure fund manager Equitix in financing the project.
The projects are to be developed by UK grid-scale battery pioneer Eelpower Limited which previously developed one of the largest operating portfolios of battery storage in the UK for other infrastructure investors.
Eelpower will be a minority investor in the new Eeelpower Energy platform.
Eelpower Energy will immediately begin constructing 300MWh of battery storage across three projects and plans to reach final investment decisions on up to 1GWh of capacity by the end of 2025.
Aware Super’s head of international and deputy chief investment officer Damien Webb said the fund’s investment reinforces its commitment to the UK energy transition and industrial strategy and demonstrated its confidence in the battery storage sector’s role in delivering cleaner, more resilient, energy systems.
Aware Super has not specified how much it will invest in Eelpower Energy apart from saying it will be “a substantial direct investor” but the NWF said it was committing up to £200 million ($415 million).
Aware Super has substantial existing infrastructure investments in the UK in Forth Ports, which operates eight ports in Scotland and England, and London-based euNetworks a builder and operator of fibre data transmission networks across 17 countries.
Image: An Eelpower battery electricity storage facility.