A £12.7m Wiltshire battery storage project planned for construction alongside one of the UK’s largest solar parks has new owners.
The 50MW Sandridge Battery Storage project between Melksham and Bromham has been bought by JLEN, the listed environmental infrastructure fund, and Foresight Solar Fund, which owns the neighbouring 200-acre Sandridge solar park.
The lithium-ion battery energy storage plant has planning consent and is construction ready. It is expected to start commercial operations in October next year and will be connected to Southern Electric Power Distribution’s network.
JLEN and Foresight Solar Fund acquired 50% each of the project from Gloucestershire-based Sandridge Battery Storage Ltd.
It is Foresight’s first move into the battery storage space. The firm has 748MW of ground-mounted solar in the UK, 146MW in Australia and 125MW in Spain.
It is JLEN’s fourth investment in battery storage systems, adding to two co-located batteries it owns as part of its run-of-river hydro portfolio, as well as the standalone West Gourdie project in Scotland, which was acquired in March.
JLEN chairman Richard Morse said: “We are happy to announce JLEN’s latest investment into the energy storage market, which is our second grid-scale battery project and the fourth asset to be added to JLEN’s portfolio of battery energy storage systems.
“We believe that assets such as these will provide a vital balancing mechanism to the grid that will aid in the rollout of intermittently generating renewable energy systems and play an important role in the decarbonisation agenda of the national grid.”
