SUSI Partners, through its SUSI Energy Transition Fund (“SETF”), has agreed to fund the development of a battery energy storage portfolio in the central-southern area of Chile. The deal expands the partnership with local developer BIWO Renovables (“BIWO”) by adding a further vector in battery energy storage to the continuing buildout of distributed and utility-scale renewable energy projects in the country.
The transaction sees SETF investing in a portfolio of 22 battery energy storage projects with a targeted total capacity of 860 MW and up to 3.5 GWh. The majority of these projects are at advanced stages of development and the first are expected to be ready to build during the first half of 2025.
All projects are being developed by existing partner BIWO, who has managed to secure scarce interconnection capacity in strategically valuable locations. As intermittent renewable energy continues to increase its share on the Chilean power grid, standalone battery energy storage systems currently represent the most cost-efficient and quickest-to-deploy solution to alleviate pressure on transmission grids. This is also reflected in the recently updated Chilean capacity market regulation, which specifically addresses the need for energy storage solutions.
The deal marks a further milestone in what continues to be a highly prolific partnership between SUSI and BIWO, which already covers distributed generation projects under Chile’s PMGD price stabilisation regime and utility-scale hybrid solar PV and battery storage projects. The expansion into standalone battery energy storage projects represents a natural evolution for the partnership based on both parties’ experience in the sector.
The transaction illustrates SUSI’s ability to fuse its energy transition investment expertise with portfolio and partner companies’ extensive local networks and intricate knowledge of regional markets to gain access to proprietary project pipelines and rapidly seize market-specific opportunities on behalf of its clients.
SETF – the firm’s evergreen infrastructure equity fund – holds a well-diversified portfolio across a wider set of energy transition themes, including clean energy generation, energy efficiency, battery energy storage, customer energy solutions, and electric vehicle charging.
