Harmony Energy Income Trust sells 99MW battery storage asset

Battery storage investment firm Harmony Energy Income Trust (HEIT) has confirmed the sale of its 99MW Rye Common asset.

The “shovel-ready” battery energy storage system (BESS) project will be sold to Pulse Clean Energy at a “premium to its carrying value”, the company said.

HEIT stated that it had explored potential funding options for the project, similar to what it had done with its Wormald Green and Hawthorn Pit BESS projects, but the firm deemed that a sale of the project should also be explored.

The primary reason for the sale of the project is the “challenging capital raising environment that has remained following the government’s ‘mini-budget’ in September 2022”.

Following the sale of the BESS project, HEIT’s portfolio will now comprise 395.4MW/790.8 MWh across eight BESS projects. Five of these are under construction.

One of its operational BESS assets recently came online in Farnham in June 2023. Farnham was HEIT’s third project to be energised following its 98MW/196MWh Pillswood BESS project, which went live ahead of schedule in November 2022 as reported by Solar Power Portal, and its second BESS project the 11MW/22MWh Broadditch project located in Kent.

The Pillswood BESS project was one of “GB’s best performing BESS projects” in Q1 2023.