British battery energy storage system (BESS) firm Field has secured new financing to continue building out its UK project pipeline.
The £42 million non-recourse loan from Rabobank and ING will finance the deployment of 125MW of BESS projects across England and Scotland.
The loan covers financing for three 2-hour duration battery storage projects in Whitebirk (25MW), Holmston (50MW) and Drum Farm (50MW). In England, Field Whitebirk, located in Blackburn, Lancashire, is expected to begin operation later this year. North of the border, Field Holmston in Ayr, South Ayrshire, and Field Drum Farm in Keith, Moray will respectively begin operation from 2026 and 2027.
The agreement with ING and Rabobank also covers the use of Gaia, Field’s in-house flexibility platform, for optimising the deployment of all three sites, once operational. Field first launched Gaia at its site in Oldham, Greater Manchester in December 2024, automating its participation in the intraday, wholesale and balancing markets on a day-to-day basis.
The UK has one of the world’s leading BESS markets, and a recent government clean energy action plan forecasts the need for up to 27GW of battery storage by the end of this decade. The current capacity sits at around 5GW.
The growing installed base of solar and wind energy capacity is increasing the risk of curtailment when more power is produced from variable sources such as these than the grid can accommodate. In the first two months of 2025 alone, the UK incurred £253 million in expenses related to managing excess wind energy, a significant increase from £158 million during the same period in 2024.
Stephen White, Field’s chief financial officer, said: “Battery storage plays an increasingly important role in a power system run by cleaner electricity, reducing the need for curtailment, and therefore, costly constraint payments at a time when energy bills are already high. We look forward to deploying all three sites, growing Gaia’s use as a leading flexibility platform, and supporting the government’s ambition to achieve Clean Power by 2030.”
