ENVIRONMENTAL infrastructure fund JLEN has snapped up the development rights to construct the Sandridge Battery Storage project near Melksham.

The company has acquired a 50 per cent equity stake in Sandridge Battery Storage Ltd of Stonehouse in Gloucestershire.

SBSL holds the development rights to construct the Sandridge Battery Storage project, a 50MW lithium-ion battery energy storage plant.

The investment will see JLEN invest up to £12.7million over the next 12-18 months. It was has made alongside Foresight Solar Fund Ltd.

JLEN chairman Richard Morse said: "We are happy to announce JLEN’s latest investment into the energy storage market which is our second grid-scale battery project and the fourth asset to be added to JLEN’s portfolio of battery energy storage systems."

Although not yet built, the Sandridge Battery Storage plant would provide a type of energy storage power station that uses a group of batteries to store electrical energy. Battery storage is the fastest-responding source of power on grids and would be used to help stabilise the National Grid.

Mr Morse added: "We believe that assets such as these will provide a vital balancing mechanism to the grid that will aid in the rollout of intermittently generating renewable energy systems and play an important role in the decarbonisation agenda of the national grid.”

The project is expected to reach energisation and start commercial operations in October 2022.

It would be connected to Southern Electric Power Distribution plc’s distribution network and has a 49.9MW import and export connection.

The project will provide stability to the grid through provision of dynamic containment, or by reducing volatility on the system via wholesale trading in the wholesale power markets and/or the balancing mechanism, a tool used by the National Grid to balance supply and demand in real time.

This acquisition represents JLEN’s fourth investment into battery storage systems, adding to the two co-located batteries the company owns as part of its run-of-river hydro portfolio, as well as the standalone West Gourdie project in Scotland, which was acquired in March 2021.