Swell Energy Announces Capital Partnership to Deploy Portfolio of Virtual Power Plants Comprised of 14,000 Distributed Energy Storage Systems

Source: · BUSINESS WIRE · | December 10, 2020

Swell Energy, in partnership with Ares Management and Aligned Climate Capital, to finance up to 200 MWh of utility-backed distributed energy storage capacity

Source: Pixabay

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Distributed energy and grid solutions provider Swell Energy (Swell) today announced plans to finance the construction of four virtual power plants (VPPs) representing over 200 MWh of distributed energy storage paired with 100 MW of solar PV capacity.

Swell has been commissioned by utilities in three states to establish over 200 MWh of dispatchable energy capacity through the construction and aggregation of approximately 14,000 solar energy generation and storage systems, intended to provide valuable grid services to the utilities and the local grid. To support the deployment of these and other distributed energy projects, and in partnership with a fund managed by the Infrastructure and Power strategy of Ares Management Corporation and Aligned Climate Capital, Swell has created a VPP Financing Vehicle to support up to $450 million of capital investment for its nationwide VPP portfolio. The financing vehicle has been structured with Swell’s utility contracts in mind, and with the VPP capacity payments serving as a distinctive feature. Over the next twenty years, distributed energy systems in Swell’s current VPP portfolio are expected to generate over 3,000 GWh of clean solar energy, with customers potentially storing 1,000 GWh for later use, and dispatching over 200 GWh of this stored solar energy during events when the utility calls on the VPP for capacity.