Pacific Green Technologies confirmed it would sell the project for £74 million. Image: Pacific Green Technologies.

Renewable energy company Pacific Green Technologies has agreed to sell a 99MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) at Richborough Energy Park for £74 million.

The sale and purchase agreement will see the organisation sell 100% of Pacific Green Battery Energy Parks Ltd shares to the Sosteneo Fund HoldCo S.à.r.l. The project is set to become operational later this year.

Pacific Green stated it would receive an advance of £20 million upon signing of the agreement with an anticipated completion over the following weeks. According to a statement, the additional funding is “payable pursuant to operational milestones related to the battery park as it connects to the grid and becomes operational”.

Solar Power Portal previously reported that the energy park is Pacific Green’s first BESS development under a framework agreed with TUPA Energy. This framework agreement was announced in March 2022, and will see the Pacific Green Technologies subsidiary develop 1.1GW of BESS in the UK, sourced by TUPA.

Together with TUPA, Pacific Green Energy Storage is looking to continue to develop BESS projects with the balance of the 750MW within their pipeline expected to be operational in 2025.

A few months after this announcement, Pacific Green acquired 100% of the shares for Sheaf Energy Park, a BESS project which is expected to have a capacity of 249MW/373.5MWh when fully completed in 2025. This is situated in Kent near the Richborough Energy Park.

The Richborough Energy Park was funded by £23 million of debt financing provided by UK merchant banking group Close Leasing.

For the energy park, Pacific Green selected Shell to optimise the BESS system in June 2022. Under this agreement, Shell has exclusive rights to provide optimisation and trading services using the BESS’s capacity for the next decade.