CEO: Battery business case ‘robust’ despite US policy uncertainty

The CEO of a London-based renewables investor used the announcement of a sale of investment tax credits (ITCs) at a US site to announce the global business case for batteries remains strong despite recent policy upheaval in the United States.

“The fundamentals of the [BESS] asset class remain robust, supported by increasing structural demand and a favorable policy environment that reinforces the long-term need for energy storage across the multiple markets in which we operate,” said Alex O’Cinneide in a Gore Street announcement about the sale of tax credits for the company’s 75 MW/75 MWh Dogfish BESS, in Texas.

The chief executive admitted, however, Gore Street has hedged its US dollar income through 2030 and continues to hedge its euro income because of “the recent, significant geopolitical volatility.”

Gore Street said it would raise GBP 18 million ($24 million) to GBP 19 million, before July, from the sale of ITCs at the Dogfish site, in line with financial guidance that it would generate $60 million to $80 million from the sale of credits at the Dogfish site and at its 200 MW/400 MWh Big Rock project, in Imperial County, California. Dogfish has been operational since February.

The English investor said the Dogfish ITCs sale helped it towards its stated deliverables for the last fiscal year, which included energizing more than 530 MWh of assets and securing resource-adequacy contract income for the operational Big Rock site.

Motor manufacturer Nidec Motor Corp, which constructed the Dogfish site for Gore Street, invested around $20 million into the investment fund’s stock in December 2023, to secure guaranteed bidding over what was then a 360 MW, five-year project pipeline.

Gore Street’s ITC sale announcement revealed its energy storage sites can be expanded in scale and storage capacity in future and CEO O’Cinneide said its pre-construction sites would “benefit from rapidly declining capex [capital expenditure] costs.”