British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has announced an investment package at the G7 summit, including £1.3 billion to support the UK’s energy storage.
More than £300 million comes from Atri Energy Transition, an India-based company focused on the deployment of long-term energy storage (LDES). Investments have been made before £12.5 million to Invinity Energy Systems, which develops non-lithium LDES projects, and has contributed to a funding round for flow battery startup Quino Energy.
Atri’s contribution will finance the development of large-scale battery storage and advanced manufacturing, the government said.
A £1 billion investment from French infrastructure investor InfraVia Capital Partners is aimed at supporting a pipeline of flexibility projects in Britain. The government’s announcement said this would include battery energy storage and a “flexible energy platform”.
InfraVia has a majority stake in the Netherlands-based Giga Storagea BESS developer with assets in Belgium and the Netherlands. In April it set its sights on Britain to launch a new entity, Supernova Power, through the acquisition of majority stakes in Mercia Power response And Balance the power.
Supernova Power will combine the flexible energy response services of Mercia Power, previously majority owned by Foresight Group, which has a portfolio of gas peaker and battery storage sites, with developer Balance Power’s portfolio of battery energy storage systems (BESS).
It will thus be scaled to provide opportunities in development, construction, operations, energy management and financing.
CEO and founder of InfraVia Vincent Levita said the £1 billion investment is “a strong vote of confidence in the UK energy infrastructure market and a testament to the stability of regulation and commitment to sustainable energy”.
Major investments in battery storage technology support what Trevor Wills, CEO of BESS developer Pulse Energy, said Solar energy portal recently: “The structural business case for BESS is stronger than ever.”
This is despite the bottlenecks caused in Britain by the grid connection queuing management measures implemented by the National Energy System Operator (NESO), which Wills described as “a critical enabler of lower energy system costs and improved system operability and safety”.
While there is no viable route forward for new BESS projects to be connected before 2035, Wills said NESO’s work will ultimately provide greater certainty for investors.
Wills will speak at the Clean Energy Summit 2030which includes the UK Solar Summit 2026 in London at the end of this month. In a chat by the fireside, ‘Storage integration and unlocking value in a constrained system‘, the discussion will explore the strategic and operational choices developers must make to maximize value.
The CP2030 Summit brings together policymakers, developers, investors and network operators to discuss the whole systems approach needed to meet the UK Government’s Clean Power 2030 target. View the agenda And book tickets to get involved.
