Gore Street has made its first US investment by acquiring an 80MW energy storage portfolio in Texas from Perfect Power Solutions Texas (PPST).
The portfolio consists of eight 9.9MW storage assets in total.
Three of the projects are two-hour duration/20 megawatt-hour (MWh) systems and have been operating since September 2021.
The remaining five should enter operation within twelve months, delivering an expected total portfolio of 160MWh.
Following the acquisition, Gore Street will have 262MW in operating assets, and a total portfolio of 708MW, including the 28MWh German acquisition announced last week.
The PPST assets participate in Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT).
Texas has increased the deployment of intermittent renewable energy whilst baseload thermal generation is being retired across the state.
The assets help to balance ERCOT’s grid by providing ancillary services, primarily through Response Reserve Service (RRS) market.
In addition, the assets can participate in Day Ahead/Real Time Trading to capture market and system-wide volatility.
The three operational sites use LG Energy Solutions lithium-ion batteries.
The operational projects’ modular design and unused land in site may present future expansion opportunities to extend the assets in both power and energy capacity, said Gore Street.
The parties to the transaction have signed the purchase agreement and the acquisition is expected to close within 30 days, subject to satisfaction of lease, grid, and permitting conditions.
Alex O’Cinneide, CEO of Gore Street Capital, said: “The acquisition further underpins our push into international markets, where they exhibit the same favourable characteristics as in GB and Ireland, meeting our returns criteria. We have been looking at both the European and US markets for a significant period to assess the best entry points.
“The electricity grids of individual states act as islands, in many ways like GB and Ireland, with their own challenges and opportunities. This acquisition presents a new high-quality counterparty, ERCOT, for our services within a significant market managing the flow of electric power to more than 26 million Texan customers.”
PSST is a company of SER Capital Partners, and an affiliate of Perfect Power.