Eolian, L.P., a portfolio company of Global Infrastructure Partners, has successfully closed the first-of-its-kind tax equity investment in two standalone utility-scale battery storage projects located in Mission, Texas. This pioneering financing is the first use of the Investment Tax Credit (ITC) structure by a standalone utility-scale battery energy storage system and is possible due to passage of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. Tax equity investment in the projects was provided by a fund managed by Churchill Stateside Group, LLC.
The Madero and Ignacio projects are interconnected battery storage facilities located on a single site with a combined operating capacity of 200 MW, and have been engineered with multiple hours of operational duration to provide critical grid resiliency to the growing communities of the Rio Grande Valley through participation and trading in the liquid energy market managed by ERCOT. The projects are scheduled to achieve full commercial operations later this year and at that time, collectively, the Madero/Ignacio site will be the largest fully-merchant battery energy storage project ever built worldwide, as measured by total deliverable energy.
Eolian's CEO Aaron Zubaty commented, "the ERCOT electricity market has been in the news frequently during the past few years as sustained economic growth and aging generating fleets have strained the grid's ability to meet demand during critical hours when thermal power plants require maintenance or when renewable energy production drops. This energy storage project is the largest of its kind in the world, represents hundreds of millions of dollars in direct investment by private investors, and solves the problem of meeting demand during hours of high uncertainty that require highly dynamic units that can turn on remotely and instantaneously to keep the lights on. The new face of grid resilience is fast and flexible energy storage to fill the gaps when other resources are too slow or too fragile to meet the challenge."
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