Battery storage projects that have two hours of storage had average earnings equivalent to £200k per MW per annum between January and March 2022, trading ancillary services and wholesale energy, according to energy storage investor and operator Harmony Energy Income Trust.
Harmony published the figure in a company update, where it also said new ancillary services launched by the system operator in April are currently under-supplied, “resulting in even higher performance for those operating assets”.
It added, “Whilst these markets are expected to stabilise, the overall market conditions are expected to remain strong in a high gas price environment which, according to independent revenue projections, is not expected to stabilise until 2026.” Forecast of revenues made in April were 27% higher than previous forecasts made in November last year, on an NPV basis and an independent valuer has agreed an updated revenue forecast for the Company which is 17% higher than at 31 January.
The company has executed two new engineer, procure, construct (EPC) contracts with Tesla, to supply, construction, maintain and optimise a 20MW battery at Farnham and a 35MW battery at Rusholme. It has brought forward target commercial operations date by five months at the Pillswood site (with two 49MW batteries) to November this year.It also expects to acquire the 99MW Bumpers project to take its portfolio to 312.5MW (625MWh.
By 31 December 2022, Harmony said it expects to have 109MW of operating projects, 203.5MW “under construction” and c.500MW “shovel ready” two-hour projects ready for acquisition (subject to financing).However, the company said global demand for batteries and rising costs of key raw materials have increased pressure on project budgets across the GB battery storage sector