EBRD takes first merchant battery stake with $19.5m Croatia deal
Source：pv magazine
ABESS described as Croatia’s first utility-scale battery has attracted up to €16.8 million funding from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).
The EBRD on Wednesday announced it would be taking an unspecified stake in the BESS being developed at a rolling mill site used by Slovenian aluminum products company Impol-TLM in Šibenik.
The specification of the BESS, and its European Union funding appear to have changed from the announcement made by Croatia’s Ministry of the Economy nine days earlier, however.
The Croatian government described the project as a 60 MW/120 MWh BESS whose 50 MW second stage would benefit from a €19.8 million grant from the EU Modernization Fund. A press release issued by the EBRD to announce its involvement in the project stated the BESS would have “up to” 60 MW of capacity and would receive only €16.5 million from the Modernization Fund.
The EBRD investment marks the European lender’s first equity stake in a standalone BESS, which will trade electricity on an unsubsidized, “merchant” basis. The EBRD revealed the IE-Energy Projekt would also feature a virtual power plant platform, to optimize operations.
The lender said its stake would be matched by a commitment from institutional investor Raiffeisen Mandatory and Voluntary Pension Funds, part of Austria’s Raiffeisen banking collective.
EBRD Director for Central Europe Miljan Ždrale said, “This investment marks a milestone in Croatia’s green transition. It supports the deployment of next-generation energy infrastructure and strengthens the resilience of the national grid, opening the door for more clean energy sources.”