Construction on 100MW West Yorkshire battery storage scheme expected to launch next year
A company behind a new battery storage project in West Yorkshire has said it expects a grid connection date "no later" than November for the scheme, with construction on the project set to complete next year.
Gresham House Energy Storage Fund, which describes itself as “the UK's largest listed fund investing in utility-scale battery energy storage systems”, said a connection offer on its Elland 2 battery energy storage system (BESS) was expected before November.
It came as the firm announced that it now does not expect to hit its £150m earnings target by the end of next year, after the connection dates for two of its other BESS projects were scheduled for 2029.
In a statement issued alongside the company’s announcement, John Leggate CBE, chair of Gresham House Energy Storage Fund plc, said: "We are emerging from a period of stasis in the BESS market with our pipeline intact, putting us in a strong position to grow the company's installed capacity and maintain our leadership position."
A key element of renewable energy systems, BESS are designed to store power from renewable energy sources for future use.
Gresham House first acquired the 100MW Elland 2 battery project in November of last year.
The scheme, which is already under construction, is located in Elland, and sits adjacent to the operational Elland 1 site already owned by Gresham House.
The scheme is one of five projects which form part of Gresham House’s three-year plan.
As part of its latest announcement, Gresham House also said that it now expects to start construction in the first half of 2027 for its Lister Drive BESS project, a 57MW scheme in Merseyside and its West Midlands-based 240MW Ocker Hill scheme.
It came after the firm received connection offers for both schemes for 2029.
Gresham House also announced that it would hold a Capital Markets Day to reflect the updates to its three-year plan.
A statement from the firm said: “The board and manager are updating the three-year plan to reflect the good progress achieved to date across its pipeline and the revised build-out phasing based on the confirmed connection offer dates.
“The company will hold a Capital Markets Day on 28 May 2026 to provide updated details to the Three-year Plan targets including updates on augmentations, alternatives revenues as well as new potential project pipeline.
“The financing of the first three projects is progressing well and the Company will provide an update at the Capital Markets Day, if not before.”
Gresham said it had now received clarity over four of its five three-year plan pipeline projects, representing 594MW, or 86 per cent of the 694MW pipeline.
In a trading update issued early last month, Gresham House announced that its unaudited net asset value (NAV) per share had reached 113.34p as of 31 December 2025, up 3.7 per cent year over year and down 2.0 per cent in the last quarter.
The firm’s unaudited operational portfolio revenues in 2025 also increased 29.9 per cent to £60.4m.
In a statement issued alongside the update, Mr Leggate said: “This year we have successfully executed on our three-year plan, achieving meaningful growth in terms of revenues, EBITDA, and operational capacity.
“Melksham, Shilton Lane and West Bradford all becoming revenue generating means that the company has now scaled up to over 1GW to be able to generate substantial operational cashflows.”