Peregrine Energy Solutions will have access to up to financing for up to US$250 million of assets, advancing a development pipeline of 37 utility-scale battery energy storage system (BESS) projects across 11 US states and five independent system operator (ISO) territories.
Powin, meanwhile, has secured up to US$200 million from KKR, which the Oregon-headquartered BESS integrator and manufacturer said will strengthen its capital position.
Peregrine Energy Solutions: 37-project pipeline in 11 US states
Peregrine Energy Solutions was founded in 2022 as a partnership between global investment asset manager Castlelake and developer Peregrine Energy Management, initially focused on utility-scale BESS but with some solar PV and wind projects also in its pipeline.
The company claimed the storage pipeline alone totals more than 22GWh, spread across the transmission and wholesale market areas of Southwest Power Pool (SPP), Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO), Electricity Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), PJM and Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC).
Energy-Storage.news’ coverage first featured Peregrine in January 2023 when Castlelake acquired two large-scale standalone BESS projects in Texas totalling 490MW from developer Black Mountain Energy Storage on its behalf.
Around a month later, Peregrine secured investment from IMM Investment Global, a South Korean alternative asset management firm.
Terms of that deal were not disclosed, but in August of last year AB Carval, an alternative asset manager owned by Tennessee-headquartered global asset management firm AllianceBernstein, agreed a US$700 million credit, equity and debt deal to help fund Peregrine’s pipeline.
Hagen Lee, founder and CEO of the developer, said that the KKR deal showed that “capital is available for developers that continue to innovate in a challenging market”.
Lee claimed Peregrine’s differentiators include being able to “site and develop high-value assets”.
The debt facility was arranged by KKR Capital Markets with Japan’s Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC).
US$200 million Powin deal will ‘accelerate expansion’
Meanwhile, Powin is a regular fixture in Energy-Storage.news’ coverage, having spread its customer base globally over the last couple of years.
Much of its project pipeline remains in the US, with its most recently publicly announced deal for an 880MWh project for utility DTE in Michigan. Powin scored deals in Europe this year with a 20MWh project in Portugal for power producer Galp, and its first UK project, a 50MW/110MWh system integration deal with developer Pulse Clean Energy.
Its biggest project to date however is the currently-under-construction Waratah Super Battery 1,680MWh system in New South Wales, Australia. In total, Powin has deployed or is in construction with 17GWh of battery storage.
Powin released its first 5MWh+ containerised BESS solution featuring its proprietary lithium-ion (Li-ion) stack in May.
This followed an interview in March with ESN Premium, in which Powin senior VP Danny Lu said the company was developing more energy-dense and higher-power solutions to compete with Chinese system integrators.
Since January of this year it has signed multi-year cell supply deals with manufacturers including a 15GWh agreement with EVE Energy, 12GWh framework deal with Rept Battero and a 5GWh deal with Hithium.
Shortly after the deal with Rept was announced, a Powin spokesperson told Energy-Storage.news that the company saw having a diversity of cell suppliers, including Tier-1 and potentially Tier-2 manufacturers, as a key strategy in managing supply chain and procurement. The company has also said it is keen to source cells from domestic US sources when possible.
Powin CEO Jeff Waters said the KKR debt facility will enable the system integrator to accelerate its expansion, “drive innovation, and maximise value for our customers.”
Deals follow KKR investments in Zenobe and Avantus
For KKR, founded in 1976 and admitted into the S&P 500 this year, it marks the latest in a number of energy storage-related investments.
Perhaps most striking was the US$748 million deal struck in Q3 of last year to take a controlling stake in Zenobe Energy, a UK battery storage and electric vehicle infrastructure solutions developer.
In July, it closed its acquisition of US solar PV and solar-plus-storage developer Avantus, formerly known as 8minute Energy, closing a US$522 million development facility in the process.
