Private equity firm ArcLight Capital Partners has agreed to acquire 185MW of operational wind farms and 80MWh of battery energy storage system (BESS) developments from GlidePath Power Solutions.
ArcLight has entered into the agreement with Glidepath through its affiliate Sequitur Renewables. It will see the investment firm buy five wind farms in Pennsylvania and West Virginia which sell power and renewable energy credits into the merchant market of grid operator PJM.
Alongside the wind farms, Sequitur is acquiring 80MWh of BESS development opportunities it described as ‘adjunct’ to the wind portfolio, though it did not provide details on the expected completion date for the projects nor whether they intend to be co-located with the wind assets.
Co-location with wind is less common than for solar due to a higher minimum project size and the greater variability in wind generation requiring more cycling of a battery, reducing its lifetime.
PJM’s area of operation includes Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware, Ohio, Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina, West Virginia, Indiana, Michigan, and Illinois.
“ArcLight is excited to re-enter the wind market through the establishment of the Sequitur platform. This platform follows prior domestic wind-focused investments in Leeward Renewables, Terra-Gen Power and CPV Wind,” said Carter Ward, partner at ArcLight.
Affiliates of the investment firm recently announced development milestones associated with the other large-scale BESS projects, which it has said its portfolio of legacy thermal plants are prime locations for. With interconnection queues one of the main challenges for new BESS projects, the existing interconnection, real estate and site infrastructure at large plants is advantageous.
One of those, Generation Bridge, recently completed interconnection studies for its 335MWh Long Beach Pier S BESS project in Long Beach, California. The 540MWh Luyster Creek BESS project in New York, developed by Eastern Generation, was recently approved by regulators.
“The Sequitur acquisition and BESS development opportunities leverage ArcLight’s core expertise in power generation, renewables and energy transition,” added Dan Revers, Managing Partner at ArcLight.
Another fossil fuel plant owner, Rise Light & Power, has similar plans for New York’s biggest power plant as Energy-Storage.news recently reported.
Milbank served as legal counsel on the transaction to ArcLight. McGuire Woods served as legal counsel on the transaction to GlidePath.