CIP Acquires 1 GWh Battery in Arizona, BrightNight Announces 800 MWh Project in Washington – pv magazine USA

September 25, 2024 Max Hall

Excerpt from ESS News

Investor Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP) has backed renewables developer Strata Clean Energy’s bid to acquire the 255 MW/1,020 MWh Scatter Wash battery site it is building.

The stand-alone battery site, located in Maricopa County, Phoenix, Arizona, secured a 20-year tolling agreement with Arizona Public Service (APS), the state’s largest electric utility, in 2023. Under the terms of the agreement, APS will pay for the electricity needed to charge the battery system, as well as a capacity payment to Strata, and will be able to offload the site when needed to help stabilize its grid.

The battery system, which is expected to be operational in the first half of 2025, was launched and secured backing from JP Morgan, Nomura and other lenders in February 2024.

CIP backed the acquisition of Strata through its CI V fund, which it aims to value at €12 billion ($13.4 billion).

“Stand-alone storage will play an important role in meeting the growing energy capacity needs in the Southwest United States, enabling the decarbonization of Arizona’s electric grid while maintaining reliability,” said Tim Evans, Partner and Head of North America at CIP.

When announcing the tolling agreement with APS in 2023, Strata mentioned its intention to develop a potential 400 MW/1.6 GWh BESS at Scatter Wash, but no mention was made of the larger scale in a press release issued on Strata’s behalf by Mercom Capital Group to announce the acquisition of the facility.

In a separate announcement regarding a US-based standalone grid-scale battery storage system, clean energy company BrightNight revealed details of a 200 MW/800 MWh BESS it plans to build in Washington state.

The Greenwater BESS project, at an industrial site in Pierce County, will be developed by BrightNight and its counterpart Cordelio Power with support from infrastructure consulting firm Aecom to support utility Puget Sound Energy’s grid.

Martin Hermann, BrightNight’s President and CEO, said, “We are excited to partner with Puget Sound Energy to bring our next-generation, AI-enhanced battery energy storage system to the great state of Washington, providing reliable, dispatchable energy to one of the regions spearheading America’s decarbonization and electrification efforts.”

A conditional use permit was issued for the Greenwater transmission infrastructure by the City of Sumner on August 26.

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