Gore Street portfolio update as it doubles in size – Gore Street Energy Storage has announced several growth milestones on its portfolio. These include the doubling of the company’s operational assets to 210MW, accelerating construction and increased capacity on its Irish assets and securing a revolving credit facility (RCF) with Santander Financial Services plc.
The two Northern Irish sites, Mullavilly and Drumkee are now complete and generating revenue (from today). Despite COVID-19, the two 50MW projects were completed on budget and in time to capture the earliest possible window to start earning revenues under Northern Irish DS3 contracts. This additional 100MW across the two sites almost doubles Gore Street’s operational portfolio, now comprising 210MW of operational capacity across 11 projects in Great Britain and Ireland. This is expected to more than double operational cash flow from the consolidated portfolio.
The DS3 contracts available for these two assets have attractive return profiles, likely to be considerably higher than the company’s target of 10% unlevered annual returns. The investment adviser understands that these are now the largest assets in operation in Northern Ireland. The DS3 programme is explained in this document.
Republic of Ireland
The company’s Porterstown project has recently successfully contracted Fluence for construction of the battery system and has secured an option to expand its capacity from 30MW to 90MW. Following an update from Eirgrid, phase one (30MW) is now expected to be commissioned in the first quarter of 2022 and phase two (60MW) will follow in due course.
In line with this expansion, the company is pleased to report that Kilmannock, the other Republic of Ireland asset in construction, has an equally significant expansion proposal, from 30MW to a potential 90MW, which is currently going through an application process. Gore Street is engaging with stakeholders to secure a streamlined construction schedule with a definitive connection date to be confirmed.
Pipeline
The pipeline of new investment opportunities continues to grow and now amounts to over 1.3GW in attractive opportunities in the UK and Internationally. Therefore, as disclosed on 8 March 2021 the company is considering utilising its placing programme to capitalise on these opportunities and looks forward to further updating investors as appropriate.
Revolving credit facility
Additionally, Gore Street has secured a £15m RCF with Santander. The RCF can be increased in line with portfolio growth. It will enable Gore Street to finance the construction of existing projects and to purchase new grid scale battery storage projects.
GSF : Gore Street portfolio update as it doubles in size