Deals for 1.12 GWh of battery energy storage in the U.S.

Another week, another three big United States battery announcements.

In California, Swedish company Eolus has sold the 100 MW/400 MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) it had been developing since 2019 to an unnamed buyer, and Arevon Energy Inc. closed a $258 million finance package for its 200 MW/400 MWh Peregrine Energy Storage project.

Further east, SMT Energy has secured $135 million for its 160 MW/320 MWh SMT Houston IV BESS, which will supply the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) grid.

The Eolus battery, in Pome, in the city of Poway, California, has been under construction since 2023, the developer said on Tuesday, and is due online before July.

The project, which Eolus said has an enterprize value of $230 million to $235.5 million, was sold to “a leading privately held renewable energy producer in the US,” for an undisclosed sum. The battery has a 10-year tolling agreement for an unspecified “California load-serving entity” to use its services.

Arevon announced on Tuesday it had closed a funding package for its Peregrine BESS in San Diego’s Barrio Logan community, also in California.

The developer said it borrowed $179 million as bridge loans, with Santander as lead arranger, and then Acadia Infrastructure Capital and its unnamed equity partner paid $79 million for a stake in the site.

The Peregrine project, which features Tesla Megapack 2 XL utility-scale batteries and is set to be operational this year, has required a $300 million capital investment, according to Arevon, and will provide enough electricity to utility Southern California Edison to power up to 200,000 homes during peak demand periods.

SMT Energy on Wednesday stated it had secured $100 million of project funding from Australia’s Macquarie Group and Ohio-based KeyBanc Capital Markets, with Macquarie’s Commodities and Global Markets business rounding out the $135 million figure by taking a stake in the project and the right to sell its investment tax credits, which SMT said are worth around $62 million.

Energy storage integrator FlexGen Power Systems is providing equipment and its HybridOS energy management system software for the Houston project, which will sell electricity on the wholesale market and offer grid ancillary services to the ERCOT grid.

SMT said Houston IV will supply enough electricity to power 8,800 Texan homes.