Dive Brief:

• Macquarie Capital says it has closed on the first non-recourse project financing of battery based energy storage systems.

• The financing, with CIT Bank, backs the buildout of a 50 MW fleet of behind-the-meter storage systems at commercial, industrial and government sites in Southern California Edison’s service area.

• Macquarie bought the projects in August 2016 from Advanced Microgrid Solutions, which will serve as the projects’ asset manager.

Dive Insight:

Last summer, Advanced Microgrid Solutions signed a $200 million deal with Macquarie Capital to jointly develop and build a fleet of the energy storage projects. The projects are expected to come online in phases over the next 12 to 24 months.

The projects will deploy Tesla Powerpack 2 lithium-ion batteries and are designed to provide utility grid services including flexible and reserve capacity, solar integration and voltage management in addition to retail energy services such as demand management, back up generation and enhanced power quality.

In keeping with one of AMS’ strategy the projects will have more than one revenue stream. The host will pay to store power that they can use to offset electricity consumption during peak periods. SoCal Ed will buy capacity from the batteries, and the batteries will be used to bid grid services into California’s wholesale power market.

“Macquarie is financing a revolution in the energy industry,” Susan Kennedy, AMS CEO, said in a statement. “The era of energy storage has begun.”